Is it? A mid-size server can support couple of million of users. Storage of large files may cost something but not the chat service is super simple and cheap to run.
They got 1 billion monthly active users in 2025. This is a write intensive workload with signaling accross all of them, including in rooms with hundreds of users, who can upload huge videos in an unlimited searchable history.
Then you got misbehaved scripts, ddos attempts, authentication for every message, encryption...
Yeah, it's expensive as hell, even with an optimised erlang backend.
In fact, if they manage to get all that down to one cent per user per month, which is very cheap for such a service, it's still 10 millions to run just in hosting.
Then you got misbehaved scripts, ddos attempts, authentication for every message, encryption...
Yeah, it's expensive as hell, even with an optimised erlang backend.
In fact, if they manage to get all that down to one cent per user per month, which is very cheap for such a service, it's still 10 millions to run just in hosting.