If a “decentralized” messager needs donations to a centralized source providing centralized architecture to exist, I don’t think it deserves to exist at all.
If the fundraising is successful, the foundation would be able to continue active development of Session, including launching Session Pro and Session Protocol v2.
If it is unsuccessful, the lack of funding would mean the foundation is not able to support Session in any capacity and will need to be shut down. As a result, Session would be removed from the app stores, and critical infrastructure like the Session file server, push notification server and seed nodes will go offline.
Insult to injury: they’re going to use your donations to create a paid plan.
(And if they don’t get enough money, what? Will they return the donations?)
Honestly there are too many private messengers. Less is more. Let it die.
I gave 5€ but now the app crashes on launch. I had moved a couple friends over to it because I liked their decentralized setup. It just lacked enough of the dumb features to family to abandon WhatsApp. I guess DeltaChat is the next viable solution? Signal is still my main driver but I want a Plan B in case that goes pear shaped. Bummer for Session. Really wanted that to work out.
Unlike session, delta chat keeps working even if you can’t reach the default servers. You’ll just have to add another relay (either your own or a community one).
1.7M MAU and a $1M goal for a year of funding is only $1/user/yr. Seems pretty achievable, but then again people really don’t like paying for things once they’re used to getting it for free.
I haven’t used session, but I hope for the health of the secure messaging community they can hit their goal.
1$/user/year is an INSANE amount. Compared to delta.chat which costs 0,001€/user/year.
I’m very suspicious of that number, I suspect that’s the cost of a server and does not include any labor costs for server maintenance or dev salaries.
Volunteer run programs are nice but also dev time is money.
The 1.7M MAU number seems highly suspect. Maybe it is just my bubble, but I have never even once met anyone online or offline that admitted to using Session.
And why donated to a doomed project like that, when there are plenty of better alternatives?
If people use it, it is clearly providing a value to them. Why shouldn’t the users try and sustain something providing value?
And even as a non-user, the more active developers and projects in this space the better - it’s never good to put all your eggs in one basket. Will I personally donate? Probably not, but I see no benefit in trashing the idea of users donating.