[flagged]
Privacy is priceless, but Signal is expensive
741–750 of 965 posts
Re: Privacy is priceless, but Signal is expensive
#742Signal 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/
WhatsApp in 2013 spent 148 M$/y with 400 MAU, or about 0.375 $/user-year. That's remarkably similar!
https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=WhatsApp&oldid=11...
(Small difference is that WhatsApp had a profitability of –93 %.)
Re: Privacy is priceless, but Signal is expensive
#743Earlier quoted context omitted.
Why is it not an option when it already exists in many places (all these protections fail all the time)? Your first sentence doesn't imply high/expensive level of customer service Besides, even now they're not ignoring all the complaints, the do fix bugs? Maybe to be more specific, how much did it cost WhatsApp when they had $1 price and a tiny team? How does it compare to the cost of SMS?
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 fees and employee compensation for part of operations team)
R&D 77 (engineering and technical teams who are responsible for the design, development, and testing of the features)
G&A 19
Re: Privacy is priceless, but Signal is expensive
#744Earlier quoted context omitted.
Any idea what prevents Signal from using cheaper alternatives? Edit: I meant moving off cloud to Hetzner, Vultr, DigitalOcean.
In business, you get what you pay for. Cheaper hosting might raise more issues that need to by handled by your employees, who also are expensive, and also the organization's focus gets disrupted. The hosting company / cloud vendor has an enormous economic advantage, with access to the entire hardware and software stack, the engineers who built it, people whose full-time job is operating it. Often it's cheaper to pay…
>Free is only free if your time is worth nothing
This is the worst take in technology. The main value of FOSS is freedom, not time or money savings. For many people freedom is more valuable than either.
Also, FOSS and managed aren't mutually exclusive.
Re: Privacy is priceless, but Signal is expensive
#745Earlier quoted context omitted.
I'd be happy to pay $1/year for signal, and I'd pay $2/year if it were decoupled from my phone number.
I'd pay much more than $2 if they offered account identifiers other than phone numbers. Trying to get a burner SIM or DID while still staying anonymous is getting increasingly difficult. But I think it's pretty clear by now that this is a feature for FVEY IC, not a bug. FFS, they burned development resources on stickers , but abjectly refuse to offer alternative account identifiers. The standard apologist response is…
> We're just asking for the option
Indeed, the Wire messenger is done like this - it offers phone number, but has an option to not use them and only rely on the usernames (although I think you need to register in the web browser for that)
Re: Privacy is priceless, but Signal is expensive
#746Earlier quoted context omitted.
And they stopped updating the server code repo for a year, apparently to hide the launch of this token: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26725915 I don't think they ever confirmed that this was why they stopped updating, or did a postmortem on how poorly that launch went. I vaguely recall there was also an unexplained spike in MobileCoin trading shortly before the public launch that looked quite a bit like inside…
I for one will never donate to signal, and consider my $1000 (or $20k of never realized "fake" money, explained later) lost to mobilecoins to be my lifetime "donation" to them. Short timeline of events from my side: - Signal announces/endorses mobilecoin support, as their new and only cryptocurrency option - I figure I'll get on it early this time after missing out on Bitcoin, despite Signal only supporting this in t…
> I figure I'll get on it early this time after missing out on Bitcoin
So you only aped in because you were hoping to get rich without doing any work, and then you fraudulently opened up an account on a shady ass centralized exchange when you knew you couldn't KYC, and got your pretend money stuck, and then when FTX fell over it turns out it was never really there.
Cryptocurrencies are awesome. Greedy people who can't do research and complain loudly when their "get rich quick" schemes blow up in their face make everyone look bad :-/
Re: Privacy is priceless, but Signal is expensive
#747I just donated $10 to Signal. Here's how to do so on iPhone in less than a minute: 1. Open Signal and click on your user icon in the upper left. 2. Go to "Settings" --> "Donate to Signal". 3. Click "Donate", select your donation options, and pay with Apple Pay.
Does this entail a 30% cut to Apple/Google?
Not on apple, at least
Re: Privacy is priceless, but Signal is expensive
#748Earlier quoted context omitted.
I for one will never donate to signal, and consider my $1000 (or $20k of never realized "fake" money, explained later) lost to mobilecoins to be my lifetime "donation" to them. Short timeline of events from my side: - Signal announces/endorses mobilecoin support, as their new and only cryptocurrency option - I figure I'll get on it early this time after missing out on Bitcoin, despite Signal only supporting this in t…
> I figure I'll get on it early this time after missing out on Bitcoin So you only aped in because you were hoping to get rich without doing any work, and then you fraudulently opened up an account on a shady ass centralized exchange when you knew you couldn't KYC, and got your pretend money stuck, and then when FTX fell over it turns out it was never really there. Cryptocurrencies are awesome. Greedy people who can'…
> So you only aped in because you were hoping to get rich without doing any work, and then you fraudulently opened up an account on a shady ass centralized exchange when you knew you couldn't KYC, and got your pretend money stuck, and then when FTX fell over it turns out it was never really there.
> Cryptocurrencies are awesome. Greedy people who can't do research and complain loudly when their "get rich quick" schemes blow up in their face make everyone look bad :-/
Normally I wouldn't acknowledge this, but I find your assumptions and accusations about me quite rude, for someone who has been on HN for at least 12 years you should know the rules. I simply stated the timeline of events as is, because there is no denying the connection between Signal and FTX through mobilecoin, and I only spent what I could afford to lose, I was well aware of the risks.
Re: Privacy is priceless, but Signal is expensive
#749Re: Privacy is priceless, but Signal is expensive
#750You have to appreciate the complete transparency, gently nudging towards giving without ever begging for it. Refreshing compared to the alternative that Wikipedia is showing, with the tantrum-like emails we receive from their CEO like "LAST REMINDER" or "We've had enough" ; which they ironically send to people who gave.
There was a comic I've never been able to find about wikipedia asking for money, it basically had them being that one crazy dude yelling at you to donate, and getting worse as time passed and you tried to ignore them. Then it showed a raw screenshot of wikipedias nag screen. Unsure who drew it or where it went, but I regret not archiving it, because it conveys what it feels like every time. I just don't want to donat…
Is it this one? https://bigmemes99.funnyjunk.com/pictures/4chan_1bff07_28908...
