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Privacy is priceless, but Signal is expensive

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Re: Privacy is priceless, but Signal is expensive

#771

Post by philjohn »

jefozabuss wrote: post #763
darthrupert wrote: post #758

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'll ask the question you're implying out loud. Why does an organization with about 50 employees need 4 C-level executives, totalling about 2M compensation per year? Or perhaps it's 7 C-level executives (3 hiding under the "Software developer" title) totalling about 3,7M compensation per year? I'm absolutely not donating money to such a thing without an answer to this question. As a counterpoint, I am a member of a l…

2M in comp distributed between 4 people is not a lot at this scale in my opinion.

For a nonprofit?

Re: Privacy is priceless, but Signal is expensive

#772

Post by rglullis »

Clamchop wrote: post #555
rglullis wrote: post #421

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Can I operate my own Signal server and talk with people on the "main" one?

Federation can only make security worse and I do not want it. You can have something else.

Security is extremely important, but it is not the only concern one should have when considering the design of a global communications infrastructure.

I worry a lot more about not having one single actor responsible in dealing for the communication of millions of people than about "quantum-resistant encryption".

Re: Privacy is priceless, but Signal is expensive

#774

Post by theshrike79 »

jefozabuss wrote: post #763
darthrupert wrote: post #758

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'll ask the question you're implying out loud. Why does an organization with about 50 employees need 4 C-level executives, totalling about 2M compensation per year? Or perhaps it's 7 C-level executives (3 hiding under the "Software developer" title) totalling about 3,7M compensation per year? I'm absolutely not donating money to such a thing without an answer to this question. As a counterpoint, I am a member of a l…

2M in comp distributed between 4 people is not a lot at this scale in my opinion.

It is for a non-profit asking for donations. If they want half a mill salaries, they should become for-profit instead.

Re: Privacy is priceless, but Signal is expensive

#775

Post by eviks »

8n4vidtmkvmk wrote: post #751
saagarjha wrote: post #720

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That’s not how platform lock-in works.

You can export to markdown apparently. Who's locked in? It might be a pain to import that into any other app but I don't think any messaging app is going to make that easy. You still have all your data if you want to bail

> pain

That's how lock ins manifest themselves

Re: Privacy is priceless, but Signal is expensive

#776

Post by pas »

jefozabuss wrote: post #763
darthrupert wrote: post #758

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'll ask the question you're implying out loud. Why does an organization with about 50 employees need 4 C-level executives, totalling about 2M compensation per year? Or perhaps it's 7 C-level executives (3 hiding under the "Software developer" title) totalling about 3,7M compensation per year? I'm absolutely not donating money to such a thing without an answer to this question. As a counterpoint, I am a member of a l…

2M in comp distributed between 4 people is not a lot at this scale in my opinion.

we ought to be well past this, if they want to be donation based they need efficiency.

it's possible to run this from, let's say, Andalusia, and hire competent folks for a fraction of this.

Re: Privacy is priceless, but Signal is expensive

#777

Post by fsflover »

rodlette wrote: post #704
fsflover wrote: post #305

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What about Matrix?

I've tried a few times. It always felt... clunky? I tried Element. UI felt slow, I was unable to find notifications in scrollback. Clicking the notification button would take me to random messages.

There are very many clients lighter than Element.

Re: Privacy is priceless, but Signal is expensive

#778

Post by YetAnotherNick »

eviks wrote: post #743
YetAnotherNick wrote: post #671

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In a December 2013 blog post, WhatsApp claimed that 400 million active users used the service each month. The year 2013 ended with $148 million in expenses, of which $138 million in losses.[1] FB acquired them next year and if my memory is correct there were 19 in the team then. [1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/WhatsApp

That $ figure tells us nothing as it includes those same huge SMS costs that Signal is on an unsustainable path to rack up With just a bit more effort you can see that most of those $148 are not related to the extra customer support we're discussing, but rather to the things that Signal is already doing Costs and expenses in 2013: Cost of revenue 53 (payment processing fees, infrastructure costs, SMS verification fee…

So for $10M revenue, they had $53M cost of revenue. I think asking for $1 is never going to be sustainable, even if leave all other costs. My guess is that "employee compensation for part of operations team" is the primary one taking all the cost, as payment processing fees couldn't be more than the revenue itself and one message is pretty cheap.

Re: Privacy is priceless, but Signal is expensive

#779

Post by miclill »

Drblessing wrote: post #710

2022 Salaries for those interested: https://projects.propublica.org/nonprofits/organizations/824... Compensation Key Employees and Officers Base Related Other Jim O'leary (Vp, Engineering) $666,909 $0 $33,343 Ehren Kret (Chief Technology Officer) $665,909 $0 $8,557 Aruna Harder (Chief Operating Officer) $444,606 $0 $20,500 Graeme Connell (Software Developer) $444,606 $0 $35,208 Greyson Parrelli (Software Developer) $…

Does anyone have an idea why they did not list the combined salaries of all employees? They did seem to list all the other things...

Re: Privacy is priceless, but Signal is expensive

#780

Post by anjel »

theshrike79 wrote: post #774
jefozabuss wrote: post #763

Earlier quoted context omitted.

2M in comp distributed between 4 people is not a lot at this scale in my opinion.

It is for a non-profit asking for donations. If they want half a mill salaries, they should become for-profit instead.

The beauty of non profits is everyone thinks they're staffed with saints, when the truth is far less beatific.
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