20/month for every chat service I use is very steep. I'd be spending more on chat services than on mobile data + unlimited calling + landline + DSL + streaming services combined!
They actual costs are apparently about 1 USD per year per user. I usually at least double (usually more) my incurred cost when the donation is optional, to cover for those who can't or won't pay, but paying 240× the cost price seems wasteful as well when there are other nonprofits that can do more good with every dollar you give them (be it solving poverty, climate change, whatever you find valuable) rather than one which has mostly fixed fees
I'm not suggesting every chat service get donations. I'm only giving to Signal, the rest of the chat services I have to use get 0.
I'm donating more than my costs deliberately because I fully understand that most users are not going to contribute money, full stop. I need those users though, because they are the people I want to privately communicate with. So the obvious thing to do is pay for as many other users as I can. If there's 50M monthly active users, and if 1% of them are like me and highly value Signal, then each of us 1% users can pay $20/month and cover the entire operation. Then the contributions of the super rich donors can be saved to rebuild the war chest.
$20/month is nothing to me considering the value I get. I understand that most won't feel that way, which is why I'm only appealing to those who do feel as I do to just get that recurring donation going now.
- whatsapp cuz some friends dont really get signal
- imessage cuz some friends dont get whatsapp nor signal
- viber cuz family across seas and that's whats popular there
- slack with some friends cuz it's nice to have focused discussions in channels
- discord cuz its better for gaming
- ig messaging cuz i stay in touch with less close acquaintances and some friends that way, comment on their stories and chat about whats going on in the moment
There's also Wire, IRC, Telegram, and Threema. SMS I also have a subscription on, but that feels different so I didn't include that in my count, and Keybase I haven't used in a while now but that might also be part of the list for some people
They actual costs are apparently about 1 USD per year per user. I usually at least double (usually more) my incurred cost when the donation is optional, to cover for those who can't or won't pay, but paying 240× the cost price seems wasteful as well when there are other nonprofits that can do more good with every dollar you give them (be it solving poverty, climate change, whatever you find valuable) rather than one which has mostly fixed fees