This is happening. First they get surprised that communication is possible beyond WA, even exactly the same. My mother's reaction was hilarious after sending me photos from Signal, free of charge. She was thinking only WA is free, every other app will charge her. I had to explain that calling, voice or video is also possible, without any payment.
How is free sustainable for Signal? I understand why WA is free based on data collection, but Signal just seems too benevolent toward its users. I read up on Signal Foundation (Acton and Marlinspike) as a non-profit which is being buoyed along by $100M from Acton. Mozilla is a non profit too, but it gets money from Google for placing Google search in Firefox. Where is the long term cash flow for Signal?
I wouldn’t be surprised if the WhatsApp founders, between the two of them, can easily sponsor Signal’s lean team for decades. (Since they’ve shown the inclination with substantive initial investments already, I’d imagine that they’ll happily keep funding if Signal continues to be used)
I was looking for this information as well. They have a donation page - https://www.signal.org/donate/ - unlike the Mozilla Foundation/Firefox, so if enough people decide to use it, and to make regular(ish) donations, it could work. See Wikipedia.
How much does it cost to run such a system and pay a dozen employees? $10m a year? Besides donation Signal does get money from the US gov because while we complain about encryption here we also realize that giving people in other countries an encrypted free form of communication helps them be freer. Our military also encourages the use because it is better that soldiers talk to their wives, partners, friends with that app than an unencrypted means and have the potential for blackmail. Same goes for politicians and many famous people (Joe Rogan recently mentioned he uses it). There is a strange dichotomy of pro and anti-encryption with the gov. But Signal does have a lot of funders and it isn't just your average person.
