Edit: just looked closer and noticed that this is almost entirely the executive team. Duh. Obviously execs are overpaid as hell but for the size of Signal and the average exec pay this is hardly surprising
Tbh I’d much rather the money go to the employees than to shady stakeholders/investors
I feel like the takeaway here is that this is how much people SHOULD be getting paid and most of the time the rest is getting siphoned off by the capital class
-
talk shit about a bad group chat app
-
angry group chat descends on shittalking
-
none of them have background information on Signal leaking metadata and even the entire message contents in some cases
-
mindless NGO executive worship
-
everyone clarifies they don’t value their privacy in the first place
We will be doing this again next week. It’s lovely. Nobody seems to understand the downside of demonstrating an entire community has zero combined expertise by demanding spoon-fed information instantly. Lacking any sources that could criticize Signal.
Do you think it could be related to sanitizing your websites with “anti-disinformation” strategies lifted directly from the people who spy on you & your family? No, no, that’s too far out. Inductive reasoning is impossible. You know this.
-
What is going on with all of these people saying CEO’s or other employees deserve to live comfortably? The average salary in the US is like $64,000 the median is more like $38,000. What kind of person could possibly do the work of 10 or almost 20 (depending on weather you prefer median or average) regular people? If people should be payed based off how much work they do this is not a reasonable amount.
people saying CEOs*
This is normal for “nonprofit” companies. The former head of Mozilla was paid 6.1 million in 2024.
I love signal and use I daily but I will admit the lack of self hosting is the biggest red flag for me. And that the servers are all in USA.
Unfortunately, I don’t have any alternatives that are as readily accessible and easy to set up to others. XMPP I guess is really the best bet for true privacy but a lot of people I talk to would be unable to grasp how to set it up and use it correctly.
Tbf they are probably renting in california lol, their ‘pwese donate we need it’ always felt about as legitimate as 'hello from jimmy at wikipedia, we’re about to shut down the website, everyone please send $1 to the wikipedia guy, 432 evergreen tereace’
We need to find a way to fund critical FLOSS. No, not like that!
40,000$ per month is way more than anyone will ever need. For sure I would stop donating, from the top of my 1,400€ per month.
I’ll agree it’s high, but then you have absolutely no idea what they do or have to put up with. Non profits should put the money they make above and beyond their expenses back into their employees, at all levels, not just the top. If you can’t beat em, join em!
My point is merely that they don’t need my money, nor anyone else’s. I am not familiar with the way 501c3 nonprofits work in the US.
I agree that’s quite a lot of money. I’m not sure what if any the cap should be. I guess my attitude is that if they are bringing in so much money, and everyone working there is getting a fair cut… then power to them? I don’t donate either, though I’ve been using Signal since before it was called that. I remember when they first introduced calling as a companion app called Red Phone.
I think that’s precisely what this is questioning : is this helping fund critical FOSS?
What if a fraction of that money instead went to Signal infrastructure? Wikimedia? FSF which initially made GNU PG? FSFE? NLNet which supports Delta Chat? Sovereign Tech Fund? etc rather than individuals?
I don’t think anybody is criticizing that hard working people contributing to a good project are well paid. I believe the question is rather what’s the cost to OTHER projects when there is 1 project, not an umbrella projects which funds others (again like NLNet or the Sovereign Tech Fund).
What model are we reproducing and what’s the risk?
FWIW the question isn’t new. It happens also with Mozilla with the compensation of its C-suite staff, not the “random” software engineer.
I think it clearly is helping. Signal is a mature, polished project. It is first-class. The infrastructure is obviously well-funded. As for other projects, I also wish they had more money but I don’t think it’s useful to criticize Signal for the fact that they don’t.
Sallaries should act as a motivator for better leadership, so these wages, at least in norwegian context, seems to be too high, too corrupting.
I barely use social media at all besides lemmy and the level of smarmy belligerence you’ve used throughout this thread makes me wanna download signal out of spite.
Maybe take a day off mang.
If we’re going to continue doing capitalism, we need to celebrate when people who are responsible for quality products are paid comfortably but not so much that their pay disrupts other peoples’ status.
700k very much qualifies in today’s world.
Stop being crabs in a bucket.
Guy who wants to continue doing capitalism
If you want to change capitalism structure, tearing down privacy tools is not the way to do it.
How much does the equivalent salary at Whatsapp pay?
an app designed to harvest phone numbers isn’t a privacy tool lmfao
Of course don’t tare down privacy tools. But they don’t need 700k a year, that’s an unreasonable amount of money that should really be redistributed.
The average WhatsApp Inc. executive compensation is $221,139 a year.The median estimated compensation for executives at WhatsApp Inc. including base salary and bonus is $221,114, or $106 per hour. At WhatsApp Inc., the most compensated executive makes $450,000, annually, and the lowest compensated makes $53,000
https://www.comparably.com/companies/whatsapp-in/executive-salaries
That’s definitely wrong. The head of whatsapp is almost certainly an E9 level or above employee, most likely above. And the average E9 makes like $4M a year
Seriously so much this!!!
These people have a great product and they should be paid enough to keep them from seeking other sources of income. That’s how we got Facebook. Plus having the numbers publicly available is a big plus.
You guys are out of your gd minds I’m not going to sit here and explain what a mode of production is to you, or that executives are not proletarians. Jesus H. Christ
If we’re going to continue doing capitalism
You missed part of my post.
If shit was spread equally, everyone would make >$500 grand a year.
FWIW not on income but on top wealth, Musk has $792 Billion (ffs…) so ~$1000B and we are 8.4B Earthlings so ~10B. If we were to spread equality his wealth (which I’m all for) it would “only” gives each of us ~$100. Conclude from that what you will but to me it’s just a reminder of just how many people we are. A lot.
PS: this isn’t about income and it might be totally different there. If you have a better metric and approximation I’d be all ears.
You ought to be tormented by ghosts of Filipino tuna fishermen for such a remark. Firstoids are completely delusional.
That is a wild amount of hate.
I’m really trying hard to see the point that’s being made. Is it just the “high” salaries, or is there some other implication? The OP seems to be insinuating that Signal is a honeypot or something. I am going to need a lot more proof than, “hey, these guys work at a non-profit and they aren’t underpaid!” Given that most tech jobs offer stock options in addition to normal salary, it would make sense that base salary should be higher at a non-profit (where stock options don’t exist). Their salary structure also seems much flatter than other non-profits that I saw within the propublica link.
What am I missing here?
We already know it’s a honeypot, this is circumstantial evidence about their role in sapping donations from the wider open source ecosystem. Keep donating to them if you don’t value your money.
Can you provide some evidence for your claims? You’ve even linked to another post where you say you’re here to educate people but all I’m seeing are assertions with no basis and insults.
honeypot
You mean Proton
We already know it’s a honeypot
Oh?
Yeah that’s why you guys focus on shit like “I was able to convince my grandma to use it” - you don’t understand what is wrong with Signal technically.
No, I focus on that because it’s real. It sounds like you don’t get out much, just judging by how you talk to people. So let me lay it out for you. People are resistant to change and you have to convince them. You aren’t good at that, which is why you’re so mad. I’m trying to get information to help convince people I know and love, which is why I’m asking for more information from the person who seems to know a lot. However you also seem to be bad at providing resources to back your claims up.
No, not everyone who fails to relate to your American experience “fails to get out much”. It’s more than you’re incapable of understanding why someone would avoid centralizing “privacy services” in countries that run the global capitalist surveillance state. What you’re doing is derailing the thread + demanding spoon feeding + begging the question. Your motivation is a wounded ego because someone said you made a bad choice—one that is as easy to fix as installing and uninstalling services.
You are being a bit of a cunt FWIW
Jesus Christ dude. I’m talking about how you are immediately hostile to everyone in this thread. Get over yourself.
Get some good software on your devices that doesn’t have a lifespan according to the goodwill of the feds, and have a wonderful morning.
LMAO @ everyone who would have denied this was true groveling at the feet of the US government’s spectacularly abd inexplicably generous Open Technology Fund after devoting 3000 comments to bashing what remains of Firefox for [checks notes] making the UI better so the community doesn’t need to spend their time making sidebars and vertical tabs… You guys are worms. Today I get to be the rock. 🥴
It’s a branch of the US military-intelligence-propaganda-industrial complex. Or was—I’m not sure if Trump’s executive order to eliminate it stuck.
JDPON Don strikes again. People got their hopes up too much when he acted like he was axing USAID programs. Just a change of management and perhaps some messaging.
I don’t know the intricacies of signal as a company or if they support any bad actors or whatnot, but I do hate to see flack for non-profit leaders and employees getting paid competitive salaries. Like if people are actually worth that much in the economy, why not try to stack the team so they’re incentivized to do well? Especially in the shit pot that is America.
I would be curious to see the spread of overhead between salaries and fundraising, outreach, etc to actually get their product out there. Because if those are balanced in favor toward actually running the business, marketing it well, and fundraising, I’d say these people more than deserve these salaries.
The company asks for donations while receiving funding from the US government and scraping metadata from activists. You people are absolute marks.
and scraping metadata from activists
You have proof on that?
and scraping metadata from activists.
And what does it have to with this?
I mean yes, it’s not ideal that they require a phone number. But how does that translate to metadata scrapping and especially from activists?
A CEO should be paid enough to live comfortably if you work at a non-profit, but if you need to be paid market rate then you’re probably not passionate about the position. When your job is fulfilling a public good rather than delivering shareholder value, that and a decently generous salary should be reward enough.
That said, I think Signal is better than Mozilla on this front, because they don’t have a long history of terrible decisions each of which coming with increased executive compensation.
EDIT: Also the CEO of Mozilla made 6-7 million per year (haven’t checked the new CEO though). Way more than Meredith Whittaker’s $750,000. So honestly Signal is an order of magnitude better on this front.
CEOs need to be constantly threatened with execution by a dictatorship of the proletariat
Also maybe no stock options like other corps? So more salary compensation
Guess adb never worked for a non-profit before.
adb is currently main developer for a fork of Delta Chat, a messenger that actually gives you privacy.
you got your messenger recommendation from congresspeople. think about that for a second and how it makes you look to technically competent people like us
But you do realize that DeltaChat also received a quite significant amount of money from the US Open Technology Fund over its course of development and to this day it is somewhat unclear how they fund what seems to be several full time developers?
Lol, I notice he didn’t say anything in reply to this.
Aw the mewling wittle baby is in love. I actually don’t use signal, but nice try. I do know a fair deal about the obscene income inequality and disparity in non-profits though.
Nice argument dude, unfortunately I don’t share your tendency to form parasocial relationships with US government-funded “privacy software” and prefer recommending open source projects utilizing extensible internet standards for longevity + reliability, so I’m unlikely to be convinced by your playground “what is he your boyfriend” antics. You’re clearly suffering from some serious cognitive dissonance, so take a step back. I don’t know you, I shared this with the community publicly in the hopes people can defend themselves better against surveillance. What motivates you, seriously? Why turn to personal attack? How did you end up at this point in your life?
My advice is learn how to take advice from people who know better than you. It can change your life, and it’s important for operating in communities that value authority from expertise rather than business jargon and ideological slapfighting.
US and the West are ‘managed’ by elite psychopaths that don’t give a shit about ordinary peoples ‘privacy’ or similar fancy tools for the wage-slaves. They have used these tools to try and break through specific nations/groups information defenses. ANYTHING sponsored by the US Oligarchy is either a part of local US control, or an attempt at reaching more people with rich-man propaganda in nations that defend themselves against US lies and color-revolutions…
And now let’s focus on the only player who is a bit transparent instead of asking how are the others…
Why are they transparent again? Because they’re a US-run NGO operation to trick activists into using police software that leaks their data. NGOs aren’t some kind of anticapitalist freedom fighters, guys, neither is christian charity. There is a reason why the US government and big tech throws its weight around with these things and it’s not altruism.
It has to be their fault. They have to be as bad as the others. And if they aren’t perfect we have to despite them even more than those who don’t even try and who push fascism in our world, right?
Hey man, this thread is well past the point where responding to unhinged comments is justifiable. Not on principle (I would respond to infinity comments online if I could, because I could help so many others. 🫀), but because this level of dogpiling indicates I can easily summon all of you whenever I desire, simply by dropping a truth deuce here. Nevertheless I will make one last, compassionate exception: You need to seek help. Regardless of whether people think responding with disgust to utterly debased reply guys is a sign I am mentally ill, what you’re doing here is grieving malicious advertising claims that were made to you about “activist software”. It remains unclear to me how a messenger being used by Jeff Bezos and US government officials is a mark of reliability and antifascism. There should be no exceptions to our standards and critical thinking. If they seem necessary, it is because the standards and critical thinking are flawed and inadequate.
Regards, Mister Modal at Lemmy.ml
And now we patronize.
It is clear if you just take time to ask. You give of what you know and think as if those were facts.
They are like any company, not big, just any company nowadays. Their limit is the limit of trusted computing (can you make a CPU execute somthing without it knowing what it does). All the rest can be encrypted, at rest and in transit.
Can they resist to threat like your government? First… you call it government but it is all the country. Laws were there before since decadeS now.
Can they resist against the state? They can resist, not vanquish, because it is the State. Can they be shut down? Yes. Do they have the choice? No, or their service wouldn’t exist. Creating a datacenter which is virtualy al,ays on is hard, this is why the full globe gave up except few companies for which is it their main business.
Instead of announcing facts which are just opinions, ask questions. Instead of despiting what you can have, see how to improve it of replace it. But don’t diminish what is offered (ffs it’s even free).
And don’t patronize. If you don’t want to discuss then go post this on Facebook. Your context is the U.S. , it isn’t the world, and this place is called the Web. I’m not perfect, I’m not above you, but at least I know that I am not alone, that my culture isn’t the inly one here, and I can appreciate when somebody wants to help.
So let’s tolerate each other without spitting on what other people may like because “it has your gov money”. All isn’t bad. Look at the NASA, the Internet, … We could live together if we want to. The question is do you and how do you start.
Stop right there and explain to me how Signal leaks communications through Google Firebase and Apple Websocket. You have no right to demand not to be patronized to. You wouldn’t call someone telling you to pull up your fly patronizing, would you?
The concept of trusting a service hosted on AWS in the first place…
