They're in a very different space than FSF/OpenBSD and competing directly with well funded companies like Facebook, Google, Telegram, etc.

Brian Acton, Whatsapp founder, probably understands this better than anyone.

> and competing directly with well funded companies like Facebook, Google, Telegram, etc.

As opposed to competing with well funded companies like Sun, IBM, SGI, and Microsoft?

Sometimes producing a better, more open product is more important than funding numbers.

So?

They're a messaging app.

Basic communication is not that complicated, it does not take that much effort.

Whole operating systems are not less complicated than exchanging messages because of differences in competition.

If Google started selling sandwiches, Subway wouldn't start requiring 30 people to make your lunch.

It is actually quite complicated to convince a consumer to use your app instead of Facebook Messenger. Especially when you don't possess an ecosystem of services that they and their friends already use on a daily basis.

It wasn't that hard for Whatsapp:

- Provide excellent clients.

- Promise to take payments and not mine data or show ads.

- Use few but smart employees.

- Profit.

Telegram managed to get this right too, and I'm disappointed with both of them for now, Whatsapp for selling out and Telegram for starting yet another crypto currency.

Both managed thanks to people going around selling it.

At the point were I

- either need more than mail envelope security (protection against causual snooping by local mail delivery)

- or were Signal or Matrix becomes equally usable as Telegram

I'll be happy to move, as will many others I think.

Provide a better messaging systems - and this time show me up front how you won't get away legally with selling out for > 10 Billion USD - tell me about it and watch me sell it. PS: protip: do charge reasonable payments like Whatsapp did! Or sell API access or something that makes you aligned with the users instead of investors.

For every Whatsapp or Telegram there's hundreds of chat clients which failed to succeed.

It's $16,000,000,000 hard (Whatsapp acquisition price).

Subway probably does have more than 30 people involved with menu design, quality control, and logistics in order to ensure that you get a consistent sandwich, though.

(although when I used to eat at Subway a lot as a kid, somehow the Subway in one town always seemed tastier than the location in a nearby town... hmmmmm)

Subway offers franchises different levels of ingredient quality. I've seen discussions about some ingredients where restaurants that paid for the higher quality usually put a smaller quantity, and people use that as an indicator.

Also, depending on when you were a kid, you may have had one restaurant that still cut the bread using the wedge technique.

Oh I’m sure. Just putting it into some context.

You spelled “competing directly with nation-state security services” wrong.

Microsoft is pretty well funded too

A secure messenger is important for civil society, but that is a good amount of funding to play with. Time to send some extra money to other foundations? Which other tech foundations are worth donating to these days?

Ideas:

- EFF

- Mozilla

- Software Freedom Conservancy

Matrix, perhaps, since it's still evolving and is a decentralized solution focusing on privacy and security without the need for a phone number? [1]

[1]: https://shop.matrix.org/

- Free Software Foundation

- Wiki Media

OpenBSD and FSF don't have to pay for SMS/voice calls for user registration or a messaging infrastructure.