9 ms·

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 everyo

• deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
• hliyan 5y ago
  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.
  • polski-g 5y ago
    • linuxlizard 5y ago
      Please continue to contribute to Wikipedia. It's one place in the internet I can go and not be bombarded with ads.
      • toyg 5y ago
        True, but you'll periodically be bombarded by donation drives instead... Money ruins everything, sadly. Where's my barter system...
        • skyyler 5y ago
          I’m fine with that. Donation drives aren’t misleading. Donation drives don’t use shadow profiles. Donation drives don’t impact content. Donation drives don’t convince my grandma that she needs to send the IRS Target gift cards.
          • loeg 5y ago
            Wikipedia's donation drive is highly misleading. https://www.dailydot.com/debug/wikipedia-endownemnt-fundraising/ https://www.dailydot.com/debug/wikipedia-endownemnt-fundrais... Or the still salient https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/WP:CANCER https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/WP:CANCER
        • aaaaaaaaata 5y ago
          Decentralized/distributed are the technical terms you seek.
      • rurban 5y ago
        But filled with editors who accuse you of various sorts of foul play when stepping onto their turfs.
        • sigg3 5y ago
          Just like any other peer review process..? Littered with little kings. Some people just like this kind of mostly imaginary and low risk power.. It's not really endemic to Wikipedia as such, in my humble opinion. And the project still works.
      • gruez 5y ago
        >Please continue to contribute to Wikipedia I disagree, but for a different reason: https://www.dailydot.com/debug/wikipedia-endownemnt-fundraising/ https://www.dailydot.com/debug/wikipedia-endownemnt-fundrais...
        • kaba0 5y ago
          This was quite debunked last time - they do have reserves because in case something really bad happens (eg. people stop donating), they don’t want to go down instantly. I really don’t see how having a few years worth of reserves a bad thing - people really held open-source/non-profit companies to impossible standards.
          • gruez 5y ago
            >This was quite debunked last time Debunked... how? Can you link to this "debunking"? >they do have reserves because in case something really bad happens (eg. people stop donating), they don’t want to go down instantly. I really don’t see how having a few years worth of reserves a bad thing - people really held open-source/non-profit companies to impossible standards. This was addressed in the article. >The WMF’s financial independence is clearly not at any risk. So what is going on? The official answer is that the WMF thinks you can never have too much money put aside for a rainy day. The WMF also has high-flying, global plans to “become the essential infrastructure of the ecosystem of free knowledge” by 2030. It says it wants to create “knowledge equity”—a world where people everywhere will have as much access to information in their own language as a first-world citizen—and that this will require continuous budget increases. In all of these endeavors, it is aided by the discovery that it has a money tap in Wikipedia, built through the work of volunteers, that it can open whenever it pleases. The article isn't just decrying wikimedia building a massive reserve, it's decrying them massively expanding their scope.
    • spicybright 5y ago
      How do I delete other people's comments?
    • thatguy0900 5y ago
      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.
    • MattRix 5y ago
      Right, they just install some ads and then next thing you know they’re trying to optimize page views and mysteriously the articles get split into multiple pages and the site gets worse and worse over time. On top of that, the fact that they could implement ads is no reason to not contribute to them right now.
    • 7steps2much 5y ago
      Please don't listen to this person. I at least am very happy that Wikipedia does not have ads.
• hendersoon 5y ago
  This argument always comes up, and the general conclusion is that the vast, vast, vast majority of people will never willingly donate a single penny. Those that will donate typically aren't price-sensitive. I completely agree with you and would give, say, $12/year. But there's no way I'm giving $5/month. Luckily Signal also has a "booster" one-time donation option so I'm just going to "boost" twelve bucks. Maybe I'll remember to give again next February, who knows?
• stavros 5y ago
  Same, I thought about paying but $5 is over my "sure" threshold. $10/yr would be much, much easier.
• skylanh 5y ago
  Firstly, Random websites tell me that each Facebook user is worth on average ~$35/year on revenue figures--no indication if that was net or gross. So, ~$5/month gross costs is appropriate when comparing it to deferred "you are the product" and taking into account cryptographers, developers, testers, system administrators, infrastructure administrators, team leads, program leads, and adding in physical infrastructure and network interconnections. Otherwise you're just valuing against your own perception of "how much is my disposable income", which is different between any economic zone. And that's a poor argument when some people's concept of a steak dinner is a McLaren 720s that's disposable after a month. Secondly, there are payment processor margins to take into account. At ~$60/year on 12 payments a pre-authorized standpoint, that may be less than on 1 payment of $10. I'm not interested enough to check.
  • iqanq 5y ago
    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?
    • nicce 5y ago
      Facebook (Meta) is still the biggest competitor. WhatsApp, Facebook and Instagram DMs.
      • toyg 5y ago
        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.
      • deleted 5y ago
        [deleted]
      • Tepix 5y ago
        WhatsApp is subsidized by Facebook. Threema is a better comparison. They offer a commercial, ad-free product with E2E for a one-time fee of 3.99€ in the iOS app store. They also don't sell your address book or other data. They don't even have your phone number.
• gefhfffh 5y ago
  Isn't signal deep in debt at the moment? At least 100 millions?
  • WilTimSon 5y ago
    I think you might be talking about Brian Acton's loans to them? If so, yeah, they have to pay those off at some point, which begs the question why they took a loan in the first place. They were getting grants and things like that, so taking millions that they have to pay back, especially from a guy who sold WhatsApp to Facebook is... an interesting course of action.
    • netrus 5y ago
      I have no insights in how they use that money, but I sure hope they have not spent it already on 300 SF developer years, but rather treat it as an endowment. In the long run - spending 1-5 million every year, investing the rest - it shouldn't be too difficult to preserve the nominal value over such a long time frame.
    • bitexploder 5y ago
      No set time they must be repaid. As close to a gift as you can get.
      • WilTimSon 5y ago
        > By the end of 2018, the loan had increased to $105,000,400, which is due to be repaid on February 28, 2068. The loan is unsecured and at 0% interest. This is from Signal Foundation's Wikipedia. There is a schedule.
        • parineum 5y ago
          Acton is 50 today, 96 in 2068. I'd bet his estate will have stipulations for this loan.
• enchiridion 5y ago
  Looks like there is the option for a one-off $5 "Boost", so if you want to give $10 a year you can just give two boosts.
• abdullahkhalids 5y ago
  Remember, that Whatsapp in its early days used to ask for 1USD/user/year.
  • WelcomeShorty 5y ago
    Yes and then they sold out to the biggest privacy invading company in the world. I take that as a lesson.
    • aaaaaaaaata 5y ago
• ckastner 5y ago
  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.
  • tablespoon 5y ago
    Also, maybe they have fixed costs per transaction? If they have to pay, say $0.50 per (totally made up), that would eat up 50% of a $1 contribution, but only 10% of a $5 one. It wouldn't make much sense to go through the trouble of soliciting donations if they lost too much of it to fees.
  • jrodthree24 5y ago
    I consider it high because very few people I know are actually on it. But if it was like $10/year I would have already done it and forgot about it.
• px43 5y ago
  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.
• baxtr 5y ago
  How do you know the cost per user is "much, much lower"?
  • cryptos 5y ago
    Threema, for example costs € 3,99 for a permanent license. The company behind it seems to be profitable and is around for some years now. https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=ch.threema.app https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=ch.threema.app
• et2o 5y ago
  I agree. I love using signal and have converted most of my friends to it, but $60/year is too high for me for a chat app. I’d pay a dollar a month, maybe two.
  • bjord 5y ago
    you can pay in a different currency, if your local equivalent is too much (they have regional pricing for each tier)
• windexh8er 5y ago
  For what it is and how it contributes to me daily I don't believe it's high. $5/month for the peace of mind Signal provides is something I can make a case for. I subscribe to the $10/month level - because everyone in my circle uses it, and I pushed many of them in that direction. I want it to succeed, I want it to continue to improve, I want it to be available. I know I spend more than $10/month on other things that could easily be argued are far less useful than Signal. That being said I do think there's value in a $1/month option, because that shouldn't be hard to rationalize. If something that's ad-free, operationally simple, and provides an improved level of privacy for it's users - one that requires humans and services to operate and be maintained - and still that can't be rationalized at $1/month, then the end user doesn't value what Signal is or can offer. Never mind the tradeoff one makes for "free" alternatives.
  • UnpossibleJim 5y ago
    How did you get your friends to switch? I have tried and, dude, my group will just not change from their pre-installed messaging apps, except for 2 of them. They don't care that it's more secure (arguably) or that you can pull it up on your computer (my main reason for using it), they just have no interest.
    • otachack 5y ago
      I had some luck with a subset of friends but not all of them. A big group is still on Hangouts or whatever Google calls it now. My advice is you target 2 close friends and propose to try it out for a week. If you win them over then you can start working on more. Software advocacy isn't easy by any means. Most people want to not shake the boat of their current habits especially since it will take effort and time to get accustomed.
      • sklargh 5y ago
        Sales is hard.
    • windexh8er 5y ago
      My situation is, likely, a bit different. On the familial side I required it to participate in sharing of data. Those who didn't want to use it (none) couldn't participate. Nobody really minded and when I explained why - everyone thought it made sense. I also happen to be surrounded by family who trusts each other in their respective fields and I happen to be the only one in a technical position. So, by default, my opinion has weight (good, bad or otherwise). Easy sell there and it costs all participants $0. There's about a dozen users in this group that are active. Friends and colleagues are a different tact. I work in a space where Signal makes sense for what I do, people already get it. There are people I work with that I've incented to start using it based on Signal groups they couldn't participate in otherwise. That worked well, but bootstrapping that is the hurdle. Some didn't know what Signal was and didn't question it at all when I suggested it (probably not the best approach). Looking at my Signal "Insights" for the week and I'm at 97% encrypted messaging. The 3% is service messages being delivered via SMS and one person I've texted that I've only recently started interacting with. I've used the "I need to send you this securely" a few times, which has also worked well. In those cases, since the barrier to entry is just installing, it's rarely been met with resistance. I'm not sure these help. I'd like to think I've trickled Signal out to hundreds of people over the years. Keep in mind when I started with this it was RedPhone/TextSecure, so it's been years. Consistency is a helpful driver.
• james_pm 5y ago
  A simple "pay what you want" would be superior. I'd probably do $2/month for Signal. $60/year is way too much to ask and as a result, I did one month, then cancelled. Perhaps I'll do that again in six months, but maybe not.
• thesausageking 5y ago
  If you lower the ask, you'll get more people to pay, but will it lead to more revenue in total? In my experience, I don't think so. It's really hard to get users to pay for a free app. If you've gotten them over the activation energy required, it usually works better to ask for more. Users who contribute less also tend to churn more and cause more support burden. So you don't need just to convert 6x more at $10 / yr vs. $60 / yr but more like 10x. And 10x is really, really hard to do, ime. Again, the main thing you fight is getting users to pay anything at all.
• Karawebnetwork 5y ago
  You can also make single donations called "signal boosts". For example, I try to throw them a little bit of money every now and then but would not go to a subscription. Those are defaulted to 4 6 12 25 60 125 but you can enter a custom amount.
• DavideNL 5y ago
  > I'd argue that $5/month is quite high. The minimum monthly amount is €2,66 here: https://signal.org/donate/ https://signal.org/donate/
• jakub_g 5y ago
  Kinda hack, but if you choose a different currency, the tiers are lower. (With Revolut you can use almost any currency and FX fees are 0-0.5%). For example with PLN min tier is 12 PLN = 2.64€
  • Fnoord 5y ago
    This month I donated in Indian Rupees (just like I do with YouTube Premium family), every month I will pick a different currency (tbd). With YT I had to figure out an existing address in India, with Signal it seems I can pick any (even tho my number starts with +31).
  • WelcomeShorty 5y ago
    In Euros it tells me 2,62 € is the minimum.