"look! the #signalapp income and salaries report for 2024 dropped!" #startpocketwatching #opentechnologyfund #usgovernmentsponsored
https://mastodon.de/@adbenitez/116196758509784557
https://projects.propublica.org/nonprofits/organizations/824506840
View original on lemmy.ml
How does this compare to salaries for comparable positions at comparable for-profit companies?
It's kinda the point of donations that they can afford to hire people whose labor costs that much.
Ah another hitpiece on Signal huh? They must be doing a lot right.
well yes, taking millions from the US government to dupe people like you into slathering yourself in metadata is the right move. redditors will justify anything once locked into the circlejerk
Signal is the only way I've been able to get my friends and family onto an E2E messaging app. Before this, they were all using SMS and WhatsApp. Signal is how we survived ICE in Minneapolis and organized to stop a bunch of jackbooted fascists from kidnapping all of our neighbors and deporting them to unknown countries. I have a lot of respect for the folks at Signal as a result.
I get that you all are on better platforms or whatever, but I don't appreciate the dismissive shit that I'm seeing in these replies. Especially when it's about one of the first privacy-oriented apps that normies get started with. You have some information about Signal that shows it's shitty or a honeypot? Great, then post it. I'd genuinely love to see it (and not in a "post it so I can argue with you like an annoying redditor" kinda way). But this shit about high salaries at a non profit is not convincing to me and none of your replies here are doing your cause any service.
Literally all the shit talking in this thread is all from that guy. Lots of shit talking, didn't link a single source to back it up.
The shittalking will continue until the encryption improves. It's MY thread and you can't have it!
K
greatwhitebuffaloYou're probably annoying + not my problem. You clearly aren't very knowledgable about this, so I doubt you would even be able to explain it to them. XMPP and Delta Chat are easier to set up. You're just arguing that laziness is a virtue.
Serious "it was revealed to me in a dream" shit that most people would think was excessive if I made it up as a joking example of Signal defenders. Signal is funded by the US government and collects + leaks metadata. The US government uses metadata to target hacking of the device itself. Metadata is more valuable for surveillance than message content, it is used by police + intelligence to fabricate evidence of "terror networks" including teenagers in Chicago texting each other. Minneapolis drove out ICE because they had guns and physically planted themselves between the psychos and the people they wanted to terrorize. If they were stupid enough to use Signal (or encouraged by people like you) or bring their phones downtown, they will be mopped up before they can do anything useful. Fortunately for the feds, Americans barely even bother to walk around with signs.
The ability of these companies to operate centralized services in countries that serve gag orders should make things obvious, but fortunately you people have been trained by social media to require epistemological proof of wrongdoing.
blocked
“President of Signal getting paid less than a principal engineer” must be the take here.
The same argument applies to Wikipedia: it’s a blessing these people accept working for <1M. They could easily get a job for triple the salary elsewhere but choose to forfeit it for principles.
I could also make a lot of money stealing peoples organs but its a blessing that I don't do that
Way better than Mozilla.
Coughing baby versus coughing baby
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...
LOL
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.
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.
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.
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.
You mean Proton
I always thought it was Tuta that was the honeypot.
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.
Also maybe no stock options like other corps? So more salary compensation
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
The company asks for donations while receiving funding from the US government and scraping metadata from activists. You people are absolute marks.
You have proof on that?
signal's claimed inability to collect metadata being an obvious albeit elaborate lie is a strong indicator
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?
Isn't 1M per year upper middle class in america now?
Damn, I don't think I'll make 1M in my lifetime combined.
My nephew, uncle and I have all had medical bills at $1M each
That's because you live in Europe and stretching a month's paycheck is easier than a week's and the Euro is an strogner currency with better anti-gouging laws.
To sum up, 70k euros a month is a lot.
Even 10k euro per month is a lot and will be far better than most other people in Europe and allow you to live more than comfortably.
70k euros a month is insane
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_European_countries_by_average_wage
Oh look the Americans are here to pretend that highly-paid tech workers are normal human beings. I wonder if that has anything to do with the demographics of the Reddit-fuelled Hitler instances. Worth consideration. 🤔
I've been reading this thread for way too long looking for you to post a single fucking link or source for your claims. You've typed thousands of words and 99% of them are insults to people that are just asking where you got these ideas from. Looks like you're only purpose is to slam signal without proof. Why?
We need to find a way to fund critical FLOSS. No, not like that!
40,000$ 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 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'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.
Agreed!
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.
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
You can't spell Anarchocapitalism without 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?
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.
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
I'd be surprised if this was accurate. I've seen average at Facebook of 350k. But, that's the problem, we don't really know as the data is not public.
I would also assume the private company salaries we do know don't include stock options and bonuses.
I think 700k+ is crazy high for a company without a model for much revenue. However, if they can afford it and the people are worth it, I don't think it's a bad thing in and of itself.
an app designed to harvest phone numbers isn't a privacy tool lmfao
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 shit was spread equally, everyone would make >$500 grand a year.
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.
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 missed part of my post.
addendum (to ensure someone gets hopping mad):
Meanwhile Discord in it's entirety is unencrypted
To be fair, Discord has e2e encrypted voice calls using their "Dave" protocol.
https://discord.com/blog/meet-dave-e2ee-for-audio-video
well well well, this is news to me.. but c'mon it's like an abuser decided to be nice for once xD (not enough)
Data protection isn't binary, and you should treat companies, products, etc. as they're and not mix subjective with objective.
But you're right, overall is Discord pretty terrible in this regard.
Dude, don't start
I can't believe that worked. Well, it's a good thing we have more than three options
Ugh. I've always liked Matrix (and was not bothered too much by the metadata leaks because my home server was not federated anyways), but after noticing some issues and finally reading up on the actual protocol spec a couple of weeks ago... oof. Yeah. No.
Set up XMPP for now. Works really well and the protocol seems so much saner. Unfortunately, it too has some annoyances that are unacceptable to me in the long term. I'm this close to saying "fuck it" and wasting the next couple of years of my life on a new protocol that no one is gonna use. (Cue the XKCD here.)
Unfortunately, it is not.
Ha, thanks, I'd already read that. And I do, mostly, agree; the OMEMO implementation is not great both from the security perspective discussed in the post, as well as the UX (not being able to decrypt old messages on new devices at all).
That being said, I primarily want a selfhosted, federated messenger which also takes privacy and security seriously, and at least for the former, XMPP is really refreshingly good.
Yeah no shit you already read it they post it every single time. I don't think any of them have actually read it, the problems he is complaining about were solved ages ago or by two clicks, once. The guy actually argues for people to use Telegram because they have disabilities and software is hard. An absolute masterclass.
I want to point out that the author of that linked blog, Soatok, actually removed a response in the comments from an OMEMO developer which clarified some things, which personally I think was rather odd/bad faith of them to do. When asked about it, this was their response:
According to the OMEMO developer in his response (you can it read here), there's nothing really wrong with OMEMO 0.3.0, as the dev considers it a stable standard that clients can safely implement, with newer versions basically being public beta releases toward a stable 'OMEMO 2' standard that can eventually replace 0.3.0.
Also @[email protected].
I didn't know about this response, thank you for pointing it out. However, this response fails to address the main criticism of the XMPP+ONEMO:
If someone's threat model requires absolute always-on encryption, then XMPP does currently fail that standard, but each individual will have to determine if their threat model does infact require that, and contrast it with the potential benefits XMPP currently has compared to the more secure options.
As an example, all of the always-on E2EE alternatives are really only a good alternative to messengers like whatsapp, there is currently no always-on messenger that could potentially replace the feature set of Discord, where as with the XMPP Movim client, that is currently possible due to the recent implementation of Discord-like spaces (single communities/channels with groups of rooms and drop-in chats).
For a discord community or for friends that want discord-like features, XMPP is leagues better for privacy, even though it only has optional encryption. It also offers true a decentralized federated network, which allows for more control of how your encrypted or unencrypted data is shared.
Unfortunately there's no perfect answer for all messenger needs, so each will need to have their pros and cons weighed on a case by case basis.
This article does a good job exploring the landscape of text chats, and ultimately finds that XMPP is still our best bet, it just needs some spit and polish.
Funny, I've also already read that 😄 Good blog and article.
HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA https://lemmy.ml/comment/24436351
I FUCKING KNEW IT YOU PEOPLE ONLY KNOW THAT ONE BLOG
What blog?
They're still far more encrypted than literally every other alternative.
You people have zero awareness of the limitations of your own knowledge.
Name a single Discord replacement that has anywhere close to the coverage of end-to-end encryption that Matrix does. Unless you're willing to sacrifice literally every other feature except text chat, I don't think there is one.
not my circus, not my monkeys
but them positions... as mr. cici famously quipped, that's alot of buffers
you really need a VP of eng and then a director of eng and further liaisons until you reach an actual engineer for a shop that has one product?
again, what do I care, spend it in good health
This is basically a parody of the problems with NGO corporate compensation, yes, but I feel like everyone is avoiding the elephant in the room & wishing goodwill to people making e2ee messaging that is only safe for the US government to use. Ask yourself, would the German prime minister even trust this shit?
It's not like Delta Chat main development team is even exempt from this, not sure if OP is aware of this but they want the EU to save them. Fat chance guys! Open source developers need a workers government or total independence, or they will discover they are political tools that can be dispensed with when no longer necessary. Just look at the recent pressure on Linux to eject Russian developers.
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.
Unbearable: This was the last time i donated to signal. Next time i'll donate to some small foss-projects.
Just hire from the EU. It's cheaper and they are as competent. A lot more money will be left to hire more staff. I've already moved my signal donation to matrix.
The US is a money sink.
What is going on with all of these people saying CEOs 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*
Sallaries should act as a motivator for better leadership, so these wages, at least in norwegian context, seems to be too high, too corrupting.
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'
What would be the downside if all companies were non-profit? At first sight, it sounds like a great idea.
The conventional answer is that there would be much less incentive to fund new ones.
Some things need a large investment to start: power plants, cities, factories, space stations, etc. Sometimes more money than the people involved can afford, and you need to ask someone to front the money, they typically get paid with a share of the profits.
Thanks, that sounds very reasonable.
The problem is that NGOs and charities are just a way for capital to manage social stability and will never have that kind of expansiveness. It's like trying to build socialism by starting worker cooperatives in a bourgeois democracy.
Some companies will be invisible and/or "boring" - nobody ever said: "Oh, I just love my office building's cleaning supplies delivery contractor, I should donate them again!"
To be fair non-profit doesn't mean you can't charge for your services. You just can't pay profit out as dividends so there's no incentive to overcharge.
Yes, I understand, but with the same example - I see how people can fing it interesting/motivating building a service like signal, but if I ever opened a b2b household chemistry supply company, I doubt I would be ok if it worked as a nonprofit - what's in it for me, except money?
Just answering the question: "Why doesn't everybody move to nonprofit model?"
You can still pay yourself a salary. But true, I don't see why you'd go nonprofit for b2b things. Idea of a nonprofit is usually to benefit the community, by giving customers fair prices instead of skimming a bunch off the top - why bother doing that for b2b when it just increases other businesses margins
What would be the downside if the world was made of pudding
It would collapse on itself, unable to carry its own weight, heating up massively. I consider superheated pudding volcanos something of a downside, personally. I cannot reasonably estimate what might happen in the centre of the world, supercritical fluid doesn't seem enough. Perhaps nanodiamond crystallisation from the organic parts of the pudding? Also lots of hydrogen release, I'd guess.
My suggestions involves only change of the legal framework. Besides, there are non-profit companies. I'm not sure about details, but for example Velux (windows manufacturer) and Carl Zeiss (optics) are supposed to be non-profits, and Anthropic could say no to the DoD because it's some sort of not-just-for-profit company.
Is that good?
Raising enough money to pay its employees and expand, but not the most you can without regard to anything else? Sonds like an interesting idea to explore. Or are you talking about super-dense pudding?
The pudding, not the mindless bootlicking. I like when you guys try to be funny.
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.
nice bait bro
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..
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.
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.
What a scam...
Hey guys I help orphans on a non profit, I'm a very good person. BTW I get paid 1M a year
Non profits are not charities.
These salaries are quite low in the tech sector.
I would really love for some of the people here talking about how it's a good thing this "talent" is retained to explain what it is exactly these people do. I am 100% certain they hate these people in their own companies. But somehow when they see it in an NGO corporate structure it's all sunshine and daisies.
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. 🥴
The USAGM supervises Voice of America (VOA) and Office of Cuba Broadcasting as well as state-funded Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, Radio Free Asia, Middle East Broadcasting Networks and Open Technology Fund.
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.