[nanna]

Important to remember that Brian Acton recently took over from Moxie as CEO of Signal, and he was pushing for a user-funded financial model back at WhatsApp. Signal has had a donation system for a while, but it wasnt exactly explicit and I imagine had a very low conversion rate.

I think it's fair enough that Acton would want some return to his $100 million(?) Loan to Signal. But I think more than that this is about creating a business model where users sustain Signal's development and maintenance, rather than Signal sustaining itself through ad tech, just as WhatsApp should have done.

In other words, Acton is creating the app WhatsApp should have been. And that's to be applauded

[gefhfffh]

Imo WhatsApp also should have been interoperable and without phone number obligation.

WhatsApp basically killed interoperable chat by jumping on phones and building a near-monopoly.