SignalNov 16, 2023

Signal is a nonprofit. But what does this mean in practice? Today we do something most tech co’s avoid: talk money. What does it cost for Signal to play in a lane dominated by billion $ corporations, while rejecting the surveillance business model?

https://signal.org/blog/signal-is-expensive/

Privacy is Priceless, but Signal is Expensive

Signal is the world’s most widely used truly private messaging app, and our cryptographic technologies provide extra layers of privacy beyond the Signal app itself. Since launching in 2013, the Signal Protocol—our end-to-end encryption technology—has become the de facto standard for private commu...

Signal Messenger
Show threadSignalNov 16, 2023
We’re doing this to provide transparency into Signal, and to make clear why our choice of nonprofit status isn’t just nice to have, but a fundamental safeguard against the pressures of a profitable business model that fundamentally contradicts our stance on privacy.
Show threadSignalNov 16, 2023
By being transparent about Signal, we also hope to shed light on the industry. We show how expensive the development of high- availability consumer tech is & by implication the massive profitability of the surveillance business model underwriting most tech.
Show threadSignalNov 16, 2023

We also believe it is imperative to build alternatives to the current tech ecosystem & its reliance on surveillance. And building these alternatives requires understanding the political economy of the industry, so we don’t mistake an elegant idea for a realistic possibility.

If you rely on Signal, if you believe in what we’re doing, or if you want to support tech done differently, please donate to support our work.

https://signal.org/donate/

Donate to Signal Private Messenger

Your donation helps pay for the development, servers, and bandwidth of an app used by millions around the world for private and instantaneous communication. Please make a donation today.

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Show threadOckhamNov 16, 2023
@signalapp Thanks for what you are doing. I use to donate monthly, but for quite a long time now, I still get an error about my CVC being wrong. And it's not. Either for one-shot donations or monthly ones. Fix that and I *can* literally donate again... (and reintroduce SMS within the app, which counts even more since Google is ending support of AOSP SMS app, and I'd be glad to donate even more 🙏)
Show threadSpeed demon 🇪🇺 🇳🇴🇺🇦🇵🇸
@Ockham @signalapp Got the same error. I held my nose and used PayPal.
Nov 19, 2023 at 9:10pmWeb