Privacy is Priceless, but Signal is Expensive
Privacy is Priceless, but Signal is Expensive
Signal is the world’s most widely used truly private messaging app, and our cryptographic technologies provide extra layers of privacy beyond the Signal app itself. Since launching in 2013, the Signal Protocol—our end-to-end encryption technology—has become the de facto standard for private commu...
You're viewing a single thread.
20M USD for 50 employees? ~400+k per employee is nuts!
There are European engineers working at private companies for less 20% (1/5th) of that - if even that! They aren't worse than their American counterparts. Signal could increase their team sizes by at least 30%, maybe even 50% if they hired engineers and other employees from Europe.
If signal paid 100k for European engineers to work on opensource software, mate, they'd have absolute no problems retaining them. I personally don't know a single engineer earning 100k on the European mainland. Not one.
Edit: seriously, wtf. I'm all for paying employees well and it's great that Signal has a dedicated workforce, but 400k? I'm fine canceling my donation. My jaw is still on the floor.
It's not only salaries:
about half of Signal’s overall operating budget goes towards recruiting, compensating, and retaining the people who build and care for Signal. When benefits, HR services, taxes, recruiting, and salaries are included, this translates to around $19 million dollars per year.
True. Even so, 300k or 250k per employee is at least 3 times the salary of a European engineer.
400k does not all go direct to salary - overhead, server costs, SMS costs, etc.