Signal Will Cost $50 Million Per Year to Run
Meredith Whittaker and Joshua Lund, writing for the Signal blog back in November:
Instead of monetizing surveillance, we’re supported by donations,
including a generous initial loan from Brian Acton. Our goal is to
move as close as possible to becoming fully supported by small
donors, relying on a large number of modest contributions from
people who care about Signal. We believe this is the safest form
of funding in terms of sustainability: ensuring that we remain
accountable to the people who use Signal, avoiding any single
point of funding failure, and rejecting the widespread practice of
monetizing surveillance.
But our nonprofit structure doesn’t mean it costs less for Signal
to produce a globally distributed communications app. Signal is a
nonprofit, but we’re playing in a lane dominated by
multi-billion-dollar corporations that have defined the norms and
established the tech ecosystem, and whose business models directly
contravene our privacy mission. So in order to provide a genuinely
useful alternative, Signal spends tens of millions of dollars
every year. We estimate that by 2025, Signal will require
approximately $50 million dollars a year to operate — and this is
very lean compared to other popular messaging apps that don’t
respect your privacy.
Signal funds itself through voluntary donations. Most of its competitors are funded through advertising. But iMessage is funded through device sales. If it costs $50 million per year to operate Signal, I’d guess it costs Apple more than that to run iMessage.
I know the Beeper thing is last month’s news, but the fact that iMessage costs a lot of money to operate is generally overlooked by those who think Apple should be forced to “open it up”, whatever that might mean.
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Meredith Whittaker and Joshua Lund, writing for the Signal blog back in November:
Instead of monetizing surveillance, we’re supported by donations,
including a generous initial loan from Brian Acton. Our goal is to
move as close as possible to becoming fully supported by small
donors, relying on a large number of modest contributions from
people who care about Signal. We believe this is the safest form
of funding in terms of sustainability: ensuring that we remain
accountable to the people who use Signal, avoiding any single
point of funding failure, and rejecting the widespread practice of
monetizing surveillance.
But our nonprofit structure doesn’t mean it costs less for Signal
to produce a globally distributed communications app. Signal is a
nonprofit, but we’re playing in a lane dominated by
multi-billion-dollar corporations that have defined the norms and
established the tech ecosystem, and whose business models directly
contravene our privacy mission. So in order to provide a genuinely
useful alternative, Signal spends tens of millions of dollars
every year. We estimate that by 2025, Signal will require
approximately $50 million dollars a year to operate — and this is
very lean compared to other popular messaging apps that don’t
respect your privacy.
Signal funds itself through voluntary donations. Most of its competitors are funded through advertising. But iMessage is funded through device sales. If it costs $50 million per year to operate Signal, I’d guess it costs Apple more than that to run iMessage.
I know the Beeper thing is last month’s news, but the fact that iMessage costs a lot of money to operate is generally overlooked by those who think Apple should be forced to “open it up”, whatever that might mean.