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
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*
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.
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 $1 to the wikipedia guy, 432 evergreen tereace’
We need to find a way to fund critical FLOSS. No, not like that!
40,000$ 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’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.
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 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
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?
an app designed to harvest phone numbers isn’t a privacy tool lmfao
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.
The average WhatsApp Inc. executive compensation is $221,139 a year.The median estimated compensation for executives at WhatsApp Inc. including base salary and bonus is $221,114, or $106 per hour. At WhatsApp Inc., the most compensated executive makes $450,000, annually, and the lowest compensated makes $53,000
https://www.comparably.com/companies/whatsapp-in/executive-salaries
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.
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
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 we’re going to continue doing capitalism
You missed part of my post.
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.
Sallaries should act as a motivator for better leadership, so these wages, at least in norwegian context, seems to be too high, too corrupting.
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.
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.
We already know it’s a honeypot
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.
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honeypot
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.
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
Also maybe no stock options like other corps? So more salary compensation
The company asks for donations while receiving funding from the US government and scraping metadata from activists. You people are absolute marks.
and scraping metadata from activists
You have proof on that?
and scraping metadata from activists.
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?
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…
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.
we calling signal a multi billion dollar company now
the whole context here are the insane payouts for the execs
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I don’t know why you think I would care what some random troll on the internet tags me as. Sounds like you should work on your narcissism.
Those are normal salaries for a tech company.
those are not normal salaries for people working on regular open source projects though
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
greatwhitebuffalo
my family and friends are intractable
You’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.
Signal is how we survived ICE in Minneapolis
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.
Way better than Mozilla.
Coughing baby versus coughing baby
I could also make a lot of money stealing peoples organs but its a blessing that I don’t do that
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.
70k euros a month is insane
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_European_countries_by_average_wage
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.
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?
