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Privacy is priceless, but Signal is expensive

signal.org

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Re: Privacy is priceless, but Signal is expensive

#31

Post by pluto_modadic »

RunSet wrote: post #10
Dunedan wrote: post #2

> Storage: $1.3 million dollars per year. > Servers: $2.9 million dollars per year. > Registration Fees: $6 million dollars per year. > Total Bandwidth: $2.8 million dollars per year. > Additional Services: $700,000 dollars per year. Signal pays more for delivering verification SMS during sign-up, than for all other infrastructure (except traffic) combined. Wow, that sounds excessive.

I did my part to help reduce costs by switching to the decentralized alternative, Session.[0] Bonus: Session does not demand users' phone number. Also no bundled cryptocurrency.[1] [0] https://getsession.org/ [1] https://www.stephendiehl.com/blog/signal.html

Session depends on the Loki blockchain, so I dispute point 1.

Re: Privacy is priceless, but Signal is expensive

#32

Post by minedwiz »

jph wrote: post #21

Signal can be better, IMHO, by separating from phone number requirements. In other words, let users have secure random ids, rather than forcing each user to hand over their phone number for phone company verification. It turns out the budget shows the phone number registration problem: the costs to deal with phone number verification seem to be $6MM, which seems to be 10% of the entire budget. If Signal staff are rea…

You're in luck: https://www.theverge.com/2023/11/9/23953603/signal-username-...

Re: Privacy is priceless, but Signal is expensive

#33

Post by munk-a »

Dunedan wrote: post #2

> Storage: $1.3 million dollars per year. > Servers: $2.9 million dollars per year. > Registration Fees: $6 million dollars per year. > Total Bandwidth: $2.8 million dollars per year. > Additional Services: $700,000 dollars per year. Signal pays more for delivering verification SMS during sign-up, than for all other infrastructure (except traffic) combined. Wow, that sounds excessive.

SMS rates are absolutely bonkers considering the technical way they're transmitted. The US is an outlier in SMS rates actually being reasonable (usually unlimited or close to) for consumers - but for the rest of the world the insane mark up on that communication method has mostly obsoleted it...

That'd be all well and good... the technology would die naturally, but all my American relatives continue to stubbornly use iMessage.

Re: Privacy is priceless, but Signal is expensive

#34

Post by xhkkffbf »

java-man wrote: post #4
bilal4hmed wrote: post #3

Earlier quoted context omitted.

is there any way they can reduce that cost?

Yeah, decouple Signal user identity from the phone number.

Which might be said to increase privacy. I suppose there's something to the point about combating spam. But surely there are other ways to do this, right?

Re: Privacy is priceless, but Signal is expensive

#35

Post by SahAssar »

minedwiz wrote: post #32
jph wrote: post #21

Signal can be better, IMHO, by separating from phone number requirements. In other words, let users have secure random ids, rather than forcing each user to hand over their phone number for phone company verification. It turns out the budget shows the phone number registration problem: the costs to deal with phone number verification seem to be $6MM, which seems to be 10% of the entire budget. If Signal staff are rea…

You're in luck: https://www.theverge.com/2023/11/9/23953603/signal-username-...

They will still require a phone number, it's just a alias.

Re: Privacy is priceless, but Signal is expensive

#37

Post by xkcd-sucks »

RunSet wrote: post #10
Dunedan wrote: post #2

> Storage: $1.3 million dollars per year. > Servers: $2.9 million dollars per year. > Registration Fees: $6 million dollars per year. > Total Bandwidth: $2.8 million dollars per year. > Additional Services: $700,000 dollars per year. Signal pays more for delivering verification SMS during sign-up, than for all other infrastructure (except traffic) combined. Wow, that sounds excessive.

I did my part to help reduce costs by switching to the decentralized alternative, Session.[0] Bonus: Session does not demand users' phone number. Also no bundled cryptocurrency.[1] [0] https://getsession.org/ [1] https://www.stephendiehl.com/blog/signal.html

Cool, glad to hear about this - However, it is still coupled to a cryptocurrency (https://oxen.io/) even if not bundled wechat-style

Re: Privacy is priceless, but Signal is expensive

#38

Post by parker_mountain »

syspec wrote: post #30
craftkiller wrote: post #8

Back in the day Signal was called TextSecure and it did everything over SMS which required no centralized infrastructure aside from the cellular networks. They transitioned to internet-based messaging to support Apple devices. It seems that decision is now a 50 million dollar per year step backwards.

If you check their costs, SMS (used for registration) is the most expensive part of their operation.

You misunderstand how textsecure worked.

Re: Privacy is priceless, but Signal is expensive

#39

Post by craftkiller »

syspec wrote: post #30
craftkiller wrote: post #8

Back in the day Signal was called TextSecure and it did everything over SMS which required no centralized infrastructure aside from the cellular networks. They transitioned to internet-based messaging to support Apple devices. It seems that decision is now a 50 million dollar per year step backwards.

If you check their costs, SMS (used for registration) is the most expensive part of their operation.

There was no "registration" and TextSecure never sent you messages. It was strictly peer-to-peer.

Re: Privacy is priceless, but Signal is expensive

#40

Post by rogerkirkness »

V__ wrote: post #36

Signal had 40 million active users in 2021 [1]. With 14 million in infra cost, that comes to .35 per user/year. Total expenses are about 33 million, so about .825 per user/year. All in all that seems very reasonable. [1] https://www.businessofapps.com/data/signal-statistics/

Based on App Store downloads on both platforms, they are well over 200M at this point.
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