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Comment by yoaviram | Hacker News Reader

I'm the creator of YourDigitalRights.org, a free and open source service in the privacy space. When we started 3 years ago we decided to make the service free precisely because of the reasons outlined in this article. Almost every week I get an offer to monetize the service in some way, but I still think you shouldn't need to pay for privacy (literally as I was writing this comment I got an email offering to pay for our web extension).

One of the problems is that there is very little funding available for my sort of nonprofits. Even Mozilla with their startup studio program, which is focused on privacy, target commercial ventures. I guess that the bottom line is that as a society we do not prioritize privacy over other ambitions. This is strange to me because there's some truth to privacy being a "maker of class". Not sure how to reconcile the two.

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I appreciate your work and agree with the premise of this article that privacy needs effort; But I think it needs to be also told that the cost of privacy can be recovered in the long run directly and I don't mean by just healthier lifestyle or social good.

Digital privacy is mainly focused upon preventing siphoning of data, PiHole, uBlock, NetGuard(Android) can save data and thereby results in saving Internet costs. NoScript along with aforementioned tools can save compute and thereby power.

Many of the privacy focused alternatives are idealistic passion projects and so is often free. Linux ecosystem can cover almost all of our computing needs without the need for proprietary tools. LineageOS can give second lease to capable smartphone hardware limited by planned obsolescence, thereby saving costs on new smartphone.

I'm sure there are lot more to add here, But I've my point to why I think privacy not only recovers cost but is also capital efficient.

But the real question as the parent asks should be how can we make these projects sustainable? I'm sure the Linux Foundation wouldn't go bankrupt as the commercial implications are huge, Mozilla looks precarious but I feel its largely because of the management but what about that indie developer like the one above or the one developing NetGuard? How can we establish this value proposition to a layman for making a pro-privacy lifestyle choice?

Your parent organization Conscious Digital says it is a non-profit, but what does that mean? Is it a registered 501c something with the US IRS? Non-profit has a specific legal meaning in that case, mainly that donations are tax-deductible, but to get that designation, you have to incorporate, make public who is on your board, and provide copies of your tax returns to anyone who donates. I tried to look around in your various about pages to see whether your organization or the parent has a board or an IRS form 990 I can see and couldn't find anything, just bios about the founders.

Are you actually legally a US nonprofit, and if so, which kind, and are your articles of incorporation and board membership available somewhere for the public to see?

They're based out of the EU and UK, which you can figure out just from casually perusing their site.

There are plenty of worthy non-profits that aren't based in the US. The OpenBSD Foundation, for example.

Not-for-profit funding is misaligned. There's nearly infinite not-for-profit funding available. There's a free market of not-for-profits competing for that funding. The ones who win are the ones who do what's needed to win, not the ones who do good work.

Ability to receive money doesn't make your service paid. See e.g. how linux mint does it: https://linuxmint.com/donors.php

Agree, thanks for the correction.

> we decided to make the service free

> One of the problems is that there is very little funding

I think your problem is self-made.

> Not sure how to reconcile the two.

Accept money in exchange for the value you create.

The title of the article is "Restoring your privacy costs money, which makes it a marker of class", GP says they want to avoid that problem, and your solution is to have them charge money?

It's a worthy thing to address but then you can't also turn around and complain you don't have money when you're actively eschewing ways to make money.

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