Signal is "owned" by a non-profit. They can't be sold to a for profit, they learned their lessons from WhatsApp.

Lastly, Signal doesn't collect/store any of your data on their infrastructure other than a few hashes required for operation. WhatsApp/facebook on the other hand collect, and likely keep, forever, at much metadata about you as possible. The only way to pay for this free storage is to stay more data so they can target you for advertising dollars.

This doesn't guarantee that Signal will live forever, but at the very least they've learned from previous mistakes and have taken actions to address them.

Where is Signal's owner non-profit located? Different countries have different laws regarding the status of a corporations profit or non-profit label.

US.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Signal_Foundation

That's what I was afraid of - in the US, non-profits can be converted to for-profit. So here, Signals non-profit status for its owner shouldn't be relevant to us.

https://www.upcounsel.com/converting-non-profit-to-for-profi...

Damn. I really like Signal and it's still a cut above most, but even they must realize the US is a pretty poor place for such an organization compared to, say, Germany or Switzerland?

I know the circumstances are different, but what almost happened to .org is going to haunt me for some time.

Signal is also open source, so if they do somehow become for-profit, it can always be forked.

You would only be able to fork the client, not the network. Signal doesn't want forks or third party rebuilds e.g. from F-Droid to connect to their main network.

Most people use these apps for the network. The app without the network is useless, but any fork would initially be in this situation.

> You would only be able to fork the client

The signal server is also open source. The absence of federation does mean you would also need to get all of your contacts to move to a different service as well, but it is better than a proprietary system. I do wish Signal was more open to federation and/or alternative clients though.

Signal also writes the encryption that WhatsApp and Duo use.

I was confused at first: Google Duo, not Cisco Duo. I'd completely forgotten about Google Duo.

If they take donations in order to fund it, doesn't that give you the option of paying for the service directly?

In a way, except that there is no link between my usage and a payment, do you know what I mean? If I paid even $1 a month, I could sleep well knowing they're promising me X in exchange for Y. With a donation it just feels like I'm rewarding them for their high level promises/values. I don't know, maybe I'm overthinking it.

Donate! Then you are.

Other people who run on donations: Public Radio, The Red Cross, all government services, all religions. It's fine to be skeptical of how they use their donations, but don't be skeptical just because that's their funding model.

Taxes are not donations.

Your example of religions is also suspect. To be blunt we perceive it that way in places and times where established Churches are legally independent and separate from the government. It’s not always and often isn’t true, or at least isn’t the case by default in some places.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Church_tax

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tithe

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zakat

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jizya

Compare and contrast with Alms, the more charitable less compulsory concept:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alms

Just one more reason to love separation of Church and State and the prohibition on Congress on making laws respecting an establishment of religion.

Taxes to pay for government services are more like protection money than donations IMHO. If I were to stop paying, some angry people with guns would eventually come to my door to take me away.

The protection you get isn't a racket, it's a system that enables you and others to live in a society. If you don't want to live in a society, best of luck to you.

It's more like a subscription fee. They kick you out of society if you stop paying.

Protection money is pretty accurate actually. Instead of paying salaries for Armies and the City Guard, it’s law enforcement. Well, Armies too.

Not the nicest way to put it but they put in Yeoman’s[1] work and earn it.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yeoman

No, it's not accurate at all.

"Protection money" means somebody is illegally forcing you to pay for something that you don't want or need, solely to enrich themselves. But it's not illegal if it's literally the foundation of the society.

Democracy is the most expensive system of government. It has to be paid for or it doesn't work. It's paid for with taxes. It's not protection money, it's fuel for a life support system that you and everyone else is hooked up to.

In this case taxes are paying for the protection of a democratic society, which you can fairly reasonably call protection money.

I mean was it legal when the local Baron came and levied a tax on your wheat? Under the King’s laws, or maybe it was just tradition, but if the alternative is you’re killed and your land is taken and given to someone more loyal, then you just had a tax levied upon you and the payment was your life.

Similarly, merchants which snuck into cities rather than paying the tax at the gates were not entitled to protections from whoever was the guarantor of laws, a city guard or the like.

So what’s going to happen if you don’t pay your taxes? Turns out the IRS, the States and the equivalents in other countries have legal means of taking what you own for what you owe. We can discuss the tradeoffs on this, but in practice it’s not overly different from a Duke or a King or a mobster. What’s different is the process, the expectancy of it, and the legality.

At the end of the day, what we’re paying for is the protection of our police, fire departments, Armies and Navies.