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by skylanh 1601 days ago
Firstly, Random websites tell me that each Facebook user is worth on average ~$35/year on revenue figures--no indication if that was net or gross.

So, ~$5/month gross costs is appropriate when comparing it to deferred "you are the product" and taking into account cryptographers, developers, testers, system administrators, infrastructure administrators, team leads, program leads, and adding in physical infrastructure and network interconnections.

Otherwise you're just valuing against your own perception of "how much is my disposable income", which is different between any economic zone. And that's a poor argument when some people's concept of a steak dinner is a McLaren 720s that's disposable after a month.

Secondly, there are payment processor margins to take into account. At ~$60/year on 12 payments a pre-authorized standpoint, that may be less than on 1 payment of $10. I'm not interested enough to check.

1 comments

Are you really comparing the feature set of facebook to that of signal? Or what a user is worth to a business vs. what the business spends on the user? Or what journalists report vs. reality?
Facebook (Meta) is still the biggest competitor. WhatsApp, Facebook and Instagram DMs.
WhatsApp is subsidized by Facebook.

Threema is a better comparison. They offer a commercial, ad-free product with E2E for a one-time fee of 3.99€ in the iOS app store. They also don't sell your address book or other data. They don't even have your phone number.

That part about YOUR phone number that Apple will not have must be a lie.

If you head over to the Apple App store and pull up Threema privacy policy:

Threema has your CONTACT INFO identifiable to you, if you installed their app.

And I don’t know many people who wont put the phone number down for its contact info.

There is absolutely no need for a phone number. ICQ in 1996 did not require any phone number to chat.
Agreed. Unfortunately, Contact Info that Threema gave to Apple has your phone number.

Threema COULD turn that privacy feature around themselves, but … no: it’s a business model. n

If that's the case, any price is a losing proposition - since you're competing with free. Users don't do business-case analysis, they barely compare features. I'm not sure the Signal features can easily justify $5 over FB/WA/Insta.