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Signal users can give a recurring monthly contribution

support.signal.org

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Re: Signal users can give a recurring monthly contribution

#41

Post by _wldu »

reacharavindh wrote: post #34
_wldu wrote: post #25

Is there a market for a secure messaging app (similar to Signal) that does not rely on personally identifying information (phone numbers and emails) or is that too fringe?

This is what I wish Signal was. A simple secure messenger that works with a username and not tied to an identity like phone number :-( Like HN...... Now that I'd happily pay for.

Yep. Me too. The network meta-data is always present (IP, src, dst, date, time, etc.). Law enforcement could use that to find criminal actors committing crimes on the app.

But having such an app would allow law abiding individuals to communicate privately and securely without disclosing their personally identifying data to anyone.

Re: Signal users can give a recurring monthly contribution

#42

Post by toyg »

nicce wrote: post #32
iqanq wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Are you really comparing the feature set of facebook to that of signal? Or what a user is worth to a business vs. what the business spends on the user? Or what journalists report vs. reality?

Facebook (Meta) is still the biggest competitor. WhatsApp, Facebook and Instagram DMs.

If that's the case, any price is a losing proposition - since you're competing with free. Users don't do business-case analysis, they barely compare features. I'm not sure the Signal features can easily justify $5 over FB/WA/Insta.

Re: Signal users can give a recurring monthly contribution

#43

Post by gaius_baltar »

They should sell the ability of creating an account not attached to a phone number.

Pay $5, get a code that allows creating a single account, enter the code somewhere in the app to allow using a user name in place of the phone. This limits spam and, as this code can also be sent to another person, there is a way to hide the relationship between payer and final user. No need for cryptocoins, NFTs, or other stupid things.

Re: Signal users can give a recurring monthly contribution

#45

Post by ckastner »

Tepix wrote: post #5

I'd argue that $5/month is quite high. Not because Signal isn't useful, but because the actual incurred cost per user is much, much lower. Of course, not everyone is going to pay. But if Signal were to ask users to pay, say $10 per year , i'm sure there'd be a lot more payers.

It depends on who you are targeting.

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.

Re: Signal users can give a recurring monthly contribution

#46

Post by spicybright »

polski-g wrote: post #36
hliyan wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm in a third world country and even I would contribute $10 a year. I already contribute to Wikipedia on occasion. Making it monthly feels like too much of an obligation.

Quoted post unavailable.

How do I delete other people's comments?

Re: Signal users can give a recurring monthly contribution

#47

Post by thatguy0900 »

polski-g wrote: post #36
hliyan wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm in a third world country and even I would contribute $10 a year. I already contribute to Wikipedia on occasion. Making it monthly feels like too much of an obligation.

Quoted post unavailable.

Running ads would make them beholden to advertisers. Though I would say don't contribute to Wikipedia because it has enough money to fund itself. What you are actually donating to is Wikimedia, which may or may not be doing things you want to donate too. Similar to how donating to Firefox is actually donating to Mozilla, who may or may not do anything you consider useful with it.

Re: Signal users can give a recurring monthly contribution

#48

Post by toyg »

linuxlizard wrote: post #40
polski-g wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Quoted post unavailable.

Please continue to contribute to Wikipedia. It's one place in the internet I can go and not be bombarded with ads.

True, but you'll periodically be bombarded by donation drives instead...

Money ruins everything, sadly. Where's my barter system...

Re: Signal users can give a recurring monthly contribution

#49

Post by px43 »

Tepix wrote: post #5

I'd argue that $5/month is quite high. Not because Signal isn't useful, but because the actual incurred cost per user is much, much lower. Of course, not everyone is going to pay. But if Signal were to ask users to pay, say $10 per year , i'm sure there'd be a lot more payers.

Anything that costs less than Netflix I'll subscribe to without thinking about it, especially if it's something like Signal that I use every day. If you don't have 5 dollars a month for them, that's fine, but I'm sure enough people do that they're doing alright.

I'd bet that they get more by asking this price from more users rather than targeting more subscribers at cheaper prices.

Re: Signal users can give a recurring monthly contribution

#50

Post by w-m »

I'm happy to give my 5$/month, as I'm using Signal daily. When moving away from WhatsApp it seemed like the best option for me and my circle of friends. I can only hope that some of the money would be used to hire a developer to fix some of the issues I'm experiencing, some of which are quite annoying:

- Signal killing the whole iPad and iPhone battery in a matter of hours while running in the background, on some days

- terribly slow synchronization between phone and Desktop, catching up on a few hundred messages takes minutes

- awful UX in video calls: microphone button and camera button work in opposite ways (graying out turns one on, the other off)

- awful UX in video calls: if you have multiple people, the camera views are cut into comically wrong letterboxes, often you wont see the person at all anymore

- no giphy on the Desktop client (really, why?)

What would be the best place to voice that these issues are important to me, GitHub issues?

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