https://signal.org/blog/signal-is-expensive/
We hope that this cursory tour of some of Signal’s operations and costs helps provide a greater understanding of Signal’s unique place in the tech ecosystem, and of the tech ecosystem itself.
Our goal of developing an open source private messenger that is supported and sustained by small donations is both highly ambitious and, we believe, existentially important. The cost of most consumer technology is underwritten by surveillance, which has allowed people to assume that “free” is the default, and a handful of industry players have accrued eye-watering amounts of personal data and the unprecedented power to use that data in ways that are shaping our lives and institutions globally.
To put it another way, the social costs of normalized privacy invasion are staggeringly high, and maintaining and caring for alternative technology has never been more important.
Signal is working to show that a different approach is possible—an approach that puts privacy at the center, and where organizations are accountable to the people who use and rely on their services, not to investors, or to the endless pursuit of growth and profit.
Thank you for your support. It’s an honor and privilege to work on Signal every day, and we—very literally—couldn’t do it without you. Please consider donating to Signal via our website or learn how to give using the app.