Comment by greyface-
2 years ago
An entirely peer-to-peer instant messaging network, which doesn't rely on a central authority, is technically possible. A $50M/yr burn rate to implement that authority as an act of charity is simply unsustainable. Why do we insist on continuing down this path?
Attempts to decentralize or federate Signal are met with hostility. The Signal Foundation tells us that this is the only possible way; "the ecosystem is moving", and we must exist in competition with commercial offerings, rather than build something small, sustainable, and decentralized. This is great, until the AWS bill is due.
Because peer-to-peer messaging is not a solved issue. People want asynchronous conversations and not have to expose their location to everyone they talk to.
There are other platforms that are working on federated e2ee services (it's not easy. matrix was completely broken a year ago).
I'm not suggesting that it's a solved problem, but it's a solvable problem, and the Signal Foundation should be using its (significant) resources to solve it, rather than slowly bleeding them out to AWS, GCP, Azure, and Twilio. Unfortunately, solving that problem also significantly reduces the scope of the Foundation, so there's little incentive.