In my experience, I don't think so. It's really hard to get users to pay for a free app. If you've gotten them over the activation energy required, it usually works better to ask for more. Users who contribute less also tend to churn more and cause more support burden. So you don't need just to convert 6x more at $10 / yr vs. $60 / yr but more like 10x. And 10x is really, really hard to do, ime. Again, the main thing you fight is getting users to pay anything at all.
For users willing to donate at all, the difference between (say) $2 and $5 might not be that much. Asking for more might therefore actually maximize the return.
All other users probably wouldn't donate regardless of whether it's $1 or less, so why bother considering them in your model. (edit) Offering an $1 option would just get you 0 of these users, and possibly lower the returns of the otherwise-$5-donaters above.
I take that as a lesson.
That being said I do think there's value in a $1/month option, because that shouldn't be hard to rationalize. If something that's ad-free, operationally simple, and provides an improved level of privacy for it's users - one that requires humans and services to operate and be maintained - and still that can't be rationalized at $1/month, then the end user doesn't value what Signal is or can offer. Never mind the tradeoff one makes for "free" alternatives.
In India, Amazon prime is around $1.5/ month. Same $2.5 for Netflix mobile only basic plan.
My point is, $5/month might sound reasonable for most folk in the us but outside that, with purchasing power greatly reduced to a factor of 1:80 for example with India and USA conversion rate, these sound very expensive.
So my question is, should I pay netflix the privilege to enable me to not pirate because its easier or pay double to signal for something like matrix can give for free or self hosted at my own cost?
I don't pay for any of the said services because I find those prices too much so there is no way I could be bothered to use signal and pay for it.
I would rather set up a matrix server at a lowendbox vps, pay for annual subscription and get all my friends over. I pay for fun of learning about stuff, managing it and knowing I control the data
You also state...
> I would rather set up a matrix server at a lowendbox vps
...and my guess here is that you're going to spend roughly $2-5/month doing this anyway. Plus your hours invested. This is squarely why I'm willing to donate to Signal via my contribution. There's value in someone making sure that this works for me and those I communicate with on Signal. I manage and control far too many other things - so I'm also with you on having that control, knowing about alternatives and controlling my data when and where it makes sense. But I don't want to be in the business of owning a messaging platform for friends and family and Signal fills that gap in a great way.
My post was purely a positional statement and not meant to be construed as any sort of guilt trip of those who don't contribute.
my point is, if we are doing apples and apples comparison, old free signal competed with whatsapp/telegram. now, it is competing with netflix and prime in terms of cost because whatsapp/telegram is not paid for now.
my point is, if you are paying, why not go all the way and support matrix? signal is pretty hostile towards foss ideology and building your own servers, clients and such. the idea was "diluting the brand" but now its apparent. they wanted the signal brand to remain with the official services only because then they can charge for it.
can't you pay for matrix https://element.io/personal-plans if you do not plan to deal with the hassle of selfhosting which imo many people enjoy.
i understand the network effect of signal/whatsapp/telegram because the whole number directory thing but other than that, what does it have "better" than matrix? assuming tomorrow ALL your friends and their friends of friends use matrix instead of signal, would you feel the difference?
i am not shilling for matrix in particular. this just seems to be the better free software (foss) alternative to signal shenanigans and their disdain towards foss ideology
> you're going to spend roughly
Good relatively high-performant virtual machines can be had for $0 a month. I know of at least three different ways of getting them (all 100% legal), plus a few that don't work anymore.
> Plus your hours invested
These hours have payed many times over thanks to knowledge and experience gained from them.
> In India, Amazon prime is around $1.5/ month. Same $2.5 for Netflix mobile only basic plan.
> My point is, $5/month might sound reasonable for most folk in the us but outside that, with purchasing power greatly reduced to a factor of 1:80 for example with India and USA conversion rate, these sound very expensive.
They have a currency selector. If you pick Indian rupees, the the base level is 200 rupees a month (which Google says is $2.68).
I have tried and, dude, my group will just not change from their pre-installed messaging apps, except for 2 of them. They don't care that it's more secure (arguably) or that you can pull it up on your computer (my main reason for using it), they just have no interest.
Friends and colleagues are a different tact. I work in a space where Signal makes sense for what I do, people already get it. There are people I work with that I've incented to start using it based on Signal groups they couldn't participate in otherwise. That worked well, but bootstrapping that is the hurdle. Some didn't know what Signal was and didn't question it at all when I suggested it (probably not the best approach). Looking at my Signal "Insights" for the week and I'm at 97% encrypted messaging. The 3% is service messages being delivered via SMS and one person I've texted that I've only recently started interacting with. I've used the "I need to send you this securely" a few times, which has also worked well. In those cases, since the barrier to entry is just installing, it's rarely been met with resistance.
I'm not sure these help. I'd like to think I've trickled Signal out to hundreds of people over the years. Keep in mind when I started with this it was RedPhone/TextSecure, so it's been years. Consistency is a helpful driver.
Software advocacy isn't easy by any means. Most people want to not shake the boat of their current habits especially since it will take effort and time to get accustomed.
How close is your group? It's probably feasible to convince best friends and family to switch, but if your group contains a lot of less close friends and acquaintances, I doubt it's possible for one person to initiate a switch.
Also, it helps if you're willing to be a bit difficult, and refuse to continue to use the old app. But that only works with people who are close enough to care about communicating with you.
I completely agree with you and would give, say, $12/year. But there's no way I'm giving $5/month. Luckily Signal also has a "booster" one-time donation option so I'm just going to "boost" twelve bucks. Maybe I'll remember to give again next February, who knows?
So, ~$5/month gross costs is appropriate when comparing it to deferred "you are the product" and taking into account cryptographers, developers, testers, system administrators, infrastructure administrators, team leads, program leads, and adding in physical infrastructure and network interconnections.
Otherwise you're just valuing against your own perception of "how much is my disposable income", which is different between any economic zone. And that's a poor argument when some people's concept of a steak dinner is a McLaren 720s that's disposable after a month.
Secondly, there are payment processor margins to take into account. At ~$60/year on 12 payments a pre-authorized standpoint, that may be less than on 1 payment of $10. I'm not interested enough to check.
Threema is a better comparison. They offer a commercial, ad-free product with E2E for a one-time fee of 3.99€ in the iOS app store. They also don't sell your address book or other data. They don't even have your phone number.
If you head over to the Apple App store and pull up Threema privacy policy:
Threema has your CONTACT INFO identifiable to you, if you installed their app.
And I don’t know many people who wont put the phone number down for its contact info.
Threema COULD turn that privacy feature around themselves, but … no: it’s a business model. n
Those are defaulted to 4 6 12 25 60 125 but you can enter a custom amount.
The minimum monthly amount is €2,66 here: https://signal.org/donate/
For example with PLN min tier is 12 PLN = 2.64€
I'd bet that they get more by asking this price from more users rather than targeting more subscribers at cheaper prices.
This is from Signal Foundation's Wikipedia. There is a schedule.