[HN Gopher] Session is shutting down in 90 days
___________________________________________________________________
Session is shutting down in 90 days
Author : balamatom
Score : 134 points
Date : 2026-04-09 12:51 UTC (10 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (getsession.org)
(TXT) w3m dump (getsession.org)
| mhitza wrote:
| Never heard of them, and this page doesn't tell me what they do,
| but I've laughed at this line
|
| > _In most markets_ Senior developers often command salaries
| exceeding $150,000 USD per year
|
| Not really, there's basically a single sub-market in the US
| market where that is the norm.
| w4yai wrote:
| "Session is an end-to-end encrypted messenger that protects
| your private data. A decentralized app designed, built, and
| operated by a global community of privacy experts."
| raverbashing wrote:
| A collection of strongly opinionated crypto experts running
| on hopes more than money is no way to run a government^W^W a
| messaging app
| ExpertAdvisor01 wrote:
| They are based in Switzerland . 140k USD median dev salary
| mhitza wrote:
| Interesting claim, where do you gather that data? The quick
| results I got where from a 2024 report on TheNextWeb claiming
| its around 90k USD equivalent in Switzerland
| https://thenextweb.com/news/european-cities-highest-
| salaries...
| ExpertAdvisor01 wrote:
| https://swissdevjobs.ch/salaries
| mhitza wrote:
| Thanks for the data, 117500 CHF converted today is around
| 148k USD, and that means being in the top 25%
| ExpertAdvisor01 wrote:
| It clearly says that the median is 110k CHF ~ 140k USD
| Tade0 wrote:
| Market rate for a senior engineer in much, much poorer
| Poland exceeds 80k at current exchange rates - ask me how I
| know.
|
| I also had a contract in Switzerland for a brief, beautiful
| moment and in 2020 it was not weird to have an hourly rate
| exceeding 90CHF/h in this role.
|
| Permanent employees were making anywhere in the range of
| 100-130k CHF, so the 140k USD figure is close adjusted for
| inflation.
| xmattx wrote:
| For a Senior perhaps. The figures I find for Switzerland are
| more in the 90-120 range depending on the source. Also, I
| think what OP was referring to is the 'most markets' bit.
| Switzerland is the best paying country in Europe (discounting
| London).
| ExpertAdvisor01 wrote:
| I wouldn't have replied if the session foundation hadn't
| been based in Switzerland.
| TeMPOraL wrote:
| > _Switzerland is the best paying country in Europe
| (discounting London)._
|
| How does that look when you correct for costs of living,
| because I imagine that would put London at the _bottom_ of
| the list, as one of those places where senior-level tech
| salary is not enough to afford living in the city itself
| (and I don 't mean _the_ City of London, but the rest of it
| too).
| hibikir wrote:
| Within the US, it's far more common than you think. That's
| typical senior dev money in a large company in cities like St
| Louis or KC. What is rare outside of the biggest markets is the
| whole "enough RSUs to double your salary" thing.
| kilroy123 wrote:
| That salary is not unheard of at all in London. Especially when
| you convert PS to $.
| esskay wrote:
| Sure but Londons known for being high wages. Now change that
| location to Cornwall or the North of England and watch it get
| almost cut in half.
| roryirvine wrote:
| Manchester is only about 10% below London, other cities
| along the M62 are about 15% below according to the salary
| benchmarking data I've seen. The bigger difference is more
| in the number and type of available roles.
|
| That salary would be above the median for most perm senior
| dev positions in London, but still well within the usual
| range for established tech companies and well-funded
| startups.
| esskay wrote:
| You went from picking the highest salary city...to the
| second highest paying city. You get how that comes across
| right?
| roryirvine wrote:
| Most of the rest of the north is similar. Darlington's
| the main outlier, since it's dominated by the public
| sector.
|
| And yes, a senior dev will be on half that in the public
| sector outside London - but only if you exclude the
| pension.
|
| I don't have figures for anywhere in Cornwall. Is there
| actually much of a tech industry there?
| zipy124 wrote:
| not unheard of, but not typical.
| efficax wrote:
| the rare market is 250k+. You can get 150k in cleveland or
| milwaukee
| AugieDB wrote:
| For a senior developer, $150,000 is about right. I'm looking at
| the latest half dozen jobs I've seen on LinkedIn for open
| senior developer positions and they all start at that number,
| and range up to $185k to $200k. Digging a little deeper, I see
| some th atstart well above that number, but it's for the huge
| companies you're thinking of -- Google, Netflix, Github.
| mhitza wrote:
| The claim is that 150k is the baseline that is often
| exceeded. I don't know the region you're looking for on
| LinkedIn, but what I see for European jobs is that they
| barely crack 100k for developers. At least the senior, non
| highly specialist, jobs I'm seeing.
| esskay wrote:
| Time to broaden their hiring pool then, $150k is double the
| cost of a senior developer in many other parts of the world
| (yes including English speaking first world countries).
|
| When you've got 90 days till the doors close you cant be
| picky about your hiring pool.
| Arnt wrote:
| Read the posting. They dont have money for a team, they
| don't have money for a senior developer. Whether $150k/FTE
| or $75k doesn't matter, because they don't have either of
| those.
|
| Once the server and other costs have been paid, the have
| money for... maybe a part-time junior in Cambodia.
| dminvs wrote:
| I'd consider this a lowball in Austin
| superxpro12 wrote:
| Whats the take-home after housing and expenses tho? It's the
| same in CA... massive salaries, but also massive
| taxes+housing expenses.
| chipotle_coyote wrote:
| At least in my experience, having worked in both Florida
| and California, that's more of a wash than people imagine
| it's going to be -- and more so than the "cost of living
| calculators" tend to demonstrate, at least if you're a
| renter.
|
| I actually ran a few numbers based on current costs. If
| you're making $120K/yr in Florida and paying the average
| cost for a 1-bedroom rental in Tampa ($1,642/mo, as of
| April 2026 according to Apartments.com), your after-tax
| take home is $98 (24% federal tax bracket, no state tax)
| and you have $78.4K after rent. If you're making $180K/yr
| in California and paying the average cost for a 1-bedroom
| rental in San Jose ($2,705/mo), your after-tax take home is
| $130.5K (24% federal tax bracket, 9.3% CA state tax
| bracket) and you have $98K left after housing.
|
| You can keep fiddling with the numbers, but in _most_
| cases, the premium for getting a tech job in Silicon Valley
| is sufficiently high that you really are making more in
| absolute dollars despite the higher cost of living.
| dfadsadsf wrote:
| That math breaks down if you have kids and need 4bdrm
| house commutable distance to work in good school district
| - prohibitively expensive in Bay Area and affordable on
| engineer salary in most tier 2 cities. If you do not have
| kids, Bay Area clearly wins, especially if you are ok
| with studio/1bdrm.
| KaiserPro wrote:
| Yeah I'm not sure what they do, or why they need support
| tadhglewis wrote:
| Interestingly I applied for one of their senior frontend
| positions that required a "high level of experience" in
| Australia, they said 120k AUD with no room to go higher. Went
| with an offer of 170k instead.
| HWR_14 wrote:
| Well, that aligns with both "total raise of 93k AUD" and "we
| need more money to afford to hire senior people"
| INTPenis wrote:
| >Never heard of them
|
| They're big on dark web drug markets.
| horsawlarway wrote:
| Nah, like others have said - 150k is fairly normal for senior
| positions in _any_ decently sized metro in the US at this
| point.
|
| Even a decade ago, seniors could easily be pulling 120-150k in
| markets like Houston/Atlanta/Miami/etc... The relatively cheap
| markets.
|
| I'm in Atlanta and I'd actually say 150k is a lowball offer for
| a senior in this market at this point. I'd expect 175k+.
|
| Now - the flip side of this is that current competition is
| fairly insane with all the recent tech layoffs. So it's
| possible we're seeing some market correction. But I don't
| really think it's going to come down much. Between inflation
| and rising costs... 150k just isn't what it used to be. If it
| comes down... it's going to be because we're entering a real
| depression.
|
| ---
|
| The amount of money the US government has printed in the last 7
| years is... insane. And while it was starting to taper back
| down in 2023 and early 2024... then we got the GOP, and the GOP
| is objectively bad with money (not that the dems are that much
| better...). So m1 supply is rising at a relatively steady rate
| again.
|
| We going to feel the consequences for a LONG time (or very,
| very badly for a medium time... with unknown results).
| oofbey wrote:
| I like the idea. But I'm pretty happy with Signal. Signal does
| require a phone number I think, but otherwise seems very similar.
|
| Grounding identity in a phone number is very reasonable for
| almost all normal usage. It makes recovery simple. It does block
| the ultra paranoid use cases though. Oh well.
| Nyr wrote:
| Session is not similar to Signal.
|
| Session aims to provide anonymity, Signal aims to provide
| privacy.
| bsaul wrote:
| signal is really crappy. It fails at the most basic feature
| which is : deliver the message on time.
| bjord wrote:
| does it? have you been trying to use signal while
| disconnected from the internet?
| oofbey wrote:
| I had a friend who complained about this too. I never
| understood it. She had a really cheap old android phone.
| Maybe that's the issue?
| bjord wrote:
| I primarily use a nearly-bottom end android phone that's
| a few years old and just recently switched to an even
| older, even lower end android phone that is six years
| old. Neither has that issue.
|
| Obviously, I'm not really claiming that it's not possible
| people are experiencing this issue, but it can't possibly
| be widespread.
|
| I feel like most likely people are using android skins
| that aggressively kill apps in the background.
| dalmo3 wrote:
| I have that exact issue on a couple of not exactly low
| end Samsung phones. Holding them side by side with signal
| open. Delivery times vary wildly. Whereas WhatsApp just
| works (though I hate it for other reasons)
| bsaul wrote:
| nope, iphone here, and quite recent. But it's not just
| me, all the people i communicate with on this app have
| the same kind of problems. With a group of friends we
| even had a totally weird ordering of messages, making the
| conversation quite absurd.
|
| There's something deeply wrong with the way signal
| delivers messages...
| Imustaskforhelp wrote:
| > otherwise seems very similar.
|
| It's worth mentioning that Session had started out as a fork of
| signal.
| 0xy wrote:
| Signal's code quality is not conducive to security. They had an
| extremely bad state management bug that resulted in photos
| being sent to random contacts in your list (potentially life
| ruining implications if you're sending private photos).
|
| For this reason, it's hard to trust them. The encryption
| quality is irrelevant if the slop coded client is blasting
| random photos to random contacts.
| alance wrote:
| Source?
| 0xy wrote:
| It would've taken you less time to Google, but sure:
| https://www.bleepingcomputer.com/news/security/signal-
| fixes-...
|
| Send a GIF to Contact A, Contact B receives random private
| images? Absolutely inexcusable slop code project. This
| class of state management bugs should not be possible with
| a well-architected client, period.
|
| Signal's E2E encryption is more like End 2 Random End.
| balamatom wrote:
| >Grounding identity in a phone number is very reasonable for
| almost all normal usage
|
| In many jurisdictions, telecoms form an abusive oligopoly, and
| you need to provide a state-issued identity document to get a
| phone number.
|
| That is not at all reasonable for normal usage - unlike well-
| known non-abusive authentication methods, such as a keypair; or
| its even simpler cousin, the username/password.
| oofbey wrote:
| I guess it depends on what you consider normal. Most of the
| humans I know find it vastly easier to produce a state issued
| id to an authority than to generate a public/private key
| pair.
| balamatom wrote:
| What's easier: to obtain state ID, or to sign up to a
| website with your preferred username and password?
| oofbey wrote:
| Obtaining your first id is obviously difficult. But so is
| obtaining your first computer. If you're on good terms
| with your government, obtaining the id is easier. That's
| really the key. Sure if you focus on hostile states this
| stuff all makes sense. If you're insistent on hiding from
| authorities then many things become much more difficult,
| by design.
| vel0city wrote:
| Well, I and a lot of the people I'm going to talk to
| through things like Signal are going to have a state ID
| regardless as I live in a country where one practically
| needs to drive a car to function in society.
|
| On top of that so many other things just inherently
| expect one to have a phone number. It would be somewhat
| odd to _not_ have a phone number for most of the people I
| know and talk to through platforms like Signal.
|
| So to your question of which is easier, having the state
| ID and a phone number is easier because I'll already have
| that for a multitude of reasons.
|
| If you live in a place where its rare to have a phone
| number, then yes I agree Signal probably isn't a good
| choice.
| thefounder wrote:
| >> Grounding identity in a phone number is very reasonable for
| almost all normal usage.
|
| Yeah if you compare that with Facebook messenger and other such
| services but if you want secure communication it's not
| reasonable.
| Archelaos wrote:
| > In most markets Senior developers often command salaries
| exceeding $150,000 USD per year
|
| Why not outsource this to a cheaper country? For example, here in
| Germany salaries are about half of that, and the talent pool is
| excellent.
| ramon156 wrote:
| Id do it for 1/3rd!
| rvz wrote:
| Claude (or any other chatbot) can do it for 1/100th of the
| cost and faster than anyone.
|
| So $150k+ is overpriced.
| mrhottakes wrote:
| this is true, Claude and other LLMs are highly skilled at
| producing secure code
| aaronbrethorst wrote:
| Name checks out.
| SV_BubbleTime wrote:
| Less Claudtistic apps, not more.
| cl3misch wrote:
| Afaik Germany is one of the most expensive countries for
| employing white collar jobs?
|
| The gross income to the employee might be 75k in Germany, but
| the cost to the employer is roughly twice that amount in turn.
|
| In my (very naive) mental model, US salaries are higher, have
| less "overhead" for the employer, but leave more responsibility
| (healthcare, retirement) to the employee.
| ExpertAdvisor01 wrote:
| Yeah , but the German pension system is unfortunately a scam
| . Therefore everyone is responsible for their own retirement
| (private investments e.g etfs) .
| rvz wrote:
| > In my (very naive) mental model, US salaries are higher,
| have a lot less "overhead" for the employer, but leave more
| responsibility (healthcare, retirement) to the employee.
|
| Unfortunately this time, AI does not have vacations,
| healthcare, retirement or bills to pay and is available 24/7,
| 365 days on demand.
|
| Many companies only see this as an opportunity to cut down on
| employees in 2026 and Session will do the same.
|
| So that is why to answer your question:
|
| > ...Germany is one of the most expensive countries for
| employing white collar jobs?
|
| The main reason why the downsizing will continue until "AGI"
| is achieved internally.
| alcasa wrote:
| Employer cost is not 2x, more like 1.2x, employer overhead is
| mostly insurance related stuff. We had salaray to employer
| cost tables at my previous job.
|
| What true though is that after taxes you might just receive
| 60% of your total salary once you deduct taxes and
| insurances.
| ExpertAdvisor01 wrote:
| Add 30% on top of your salary to cover social contributions+
| healthcare.
| MandieD wrote:
| If you are getting 60k EUR as a senior developer in Germany,
| you are getting ripped off. Look for a place with an IG Metall
| contract, friends - if you would like to be making
| significantly more than $75k USD full time as a senior
| developer, anyway.
| coldpie wrote:
| I feel like a crazy person for having to write this, but: if you
| are starting a business (yes, non-profits are businesses), then
| _you need to have a business plan._ If you launch a business and
| you have not done the work to have a business plan, then in
| 99.999% of situations, your business will fail. A business plan
| includes market & competitive research, a revenue plan based on
| that research that includes realistic pricing models and costs, a
| marketing plan, and several options for when things don't turn
| out like you planned. This isn't even Business 101, this is like
| Remedial Intro to Business. If you don't have this worked out
| before you launch, you have already failed.
|
| The corollary for this is as a user, you should determine whether
| or not the business you are planning to depend on _has a business
| model_ before you choose to depend on them. If there is no
| apparent income stream, then the business _will close_ at some
| point and you may as well skip all the heartburn and choose not
| to use that business for anything you care about. BlueSky, I 'm
| looking at you right now.
| jason_zig wrote:
| I think this was their business plan. See if it works and, if
| it doesn't, shut it down
| xeromal wrote:
| Is that a problem? Seems like a fair strategy. lol
| astura wrote:
| Only if you're using other people's money.
| sph wrote:
| Fair early, fail fast is a cornerstone of startup culture
| recursive wrote:
| That's not what Session is doing. They're dragging it out
| with a plea for donations to cover operating expenses.
| Dylan16807 wrote:
| I don't see the issue.
|
| Keeping the servers online for 90 days is a very good
| thing.
|
| This final donation run doesn't change the timeline
| unless it gets a big amount of money, in which case is it
| supposed to be bad for them to change plans?
| recursive wrote:
| I don't see an issue either. I never really fully bought
| into moving fast and breaking things.
| Dylan16807 wrote:
| I'll rephrase. I don't see what's "dragging it out" about
| what they're doing.
| oofbey wrote:
| Privacy enthusiasts tend to align with anarchists - people who
| intrinsically distrust institutions. Maybe this also correlates
| with qualities like blind optimism, or disbelief in
| institutions like capitalism?
| malfist wrote:
| > Privacy enthusiasts tend to align with anarchists
|
| That's a mighty broad brush you're painting with over there.
| gchamonlive wrote:
| > Privacy enthusiasts tend to align with anarchists - people
| who intrinsically distrust institutions
|
| That's not a reasonable definition. The distrust in the
| institution is actually a side effect of questioning the
| authority for authority sake. Anarchists aren't a bunch of
| individualists that want to burn down whatever we've got in
| terms of mechanisms in the society regardless if they are
| necessary. It's just the manifestation of the dialectical
| opposite of the expression of power and authority.
|
| And privacy enthusiasts just know very well that power shifts
| and what once was a necessary mechanism can be abused by an
| elected authoritarian leader.
| Jimmc414 wrote:
| What do anti privacy enthusiasts align with?
| atroon wrote:
| Statists, I suppose.
| ToucanLoucan wrote:
| > I feel like a crazy person for having to write this, but: if
| you are starting a business (yes, non-profits are businesses),
| then you need to have a business plan.
|
| Not in tech you don't. The business plan these days is try and
| get as much investment money as you can to redistribute to your
| friends, have a few parties, hand out some Macbooks and try to
| get acquired by Google before your runway runs out.
| matwood wrote:
| > The business plan these days is try and get as much
| investment money
|
| I know you're trying to be snarky, but this is itself a
| business plan and will impact how the company is operated.
| estimator7292 wrote:
| Exactly. The explicit plan for many/most tech startups is to
| raise VC money and get an exit before everything falls apart.
|
| My last job was one of these. Everyone except the CEO and one
| designer quit. The money was drying up, CEO spent all his
| time chasing flashy big name customers who didn't want
| anything to do with us while ignoring customers begging to
| buy our product.
| georgemcbay wrote:
| > try to get acquired by Google before your runway runs out.
|
| And on the user side, treat this outcome (company whose
| product you use being acquired by Google) the same as the
| company announcing it will go out of business within the next
| year, because Google will almost certainly shut the service
| down.
| randomdrake wrote:
| When I was in college, we were required to take a business
| class (Business 101) that mandated a finished business plan as
| part of the project.
|
| It had to be long, in-depth, and include everything you
| mentioned.
|
| I was incredibly surprised when I entered the tech and startup
| workforce that these were generally absent.
|
| I had misunderstood the class and instructor and thought that
| you couldn't even start a business without one.
|
| Then, when I started raising money for my own venture, I
| thought for sure a complete business plan was a prerequisite.
|
| Nope. A few graphs, preferably hockey-shaped, and a good story
| were all that was necessary.
|
| My venture failed, of course. But if I were to do it again, I
| would do myself the favor of having a complete plan. It would
| definitely save a lot of headaches and guessing in the moment.
| ecshafer wrote:
| There is some great irony that you can have a flashy app with
| good user growth, and get a chunk of cash from a vc firm. But
| if you want to get a loan from a Bank to open a restaurant
| you best have a business plan.
| miki123211 wrote:
| Slack (originally an MMO), Nintendo (card games), Nokia (rubber
| shoes) and Netflix (DVDs over snail mail) would disagree.
|
| "We'll gather a bunch of talented people together, figure out
| what this industry needs and then do that, let's hope we can do
| that before the money runs out" can be a viable business plan.
| There's no guarantee it's going to work, there's never a
| guarantee a plan is going to work, but it can work sometimes.
| dpiers wrote:
| You're neglecting the fact that each one of those businesses
| had a plan, they just pivoted to more successful plans.
| santadays wrote:
| I believe NetFlix actually had a plan to stream movies from
| the start (hence the name) and just did the DVD shipping as a
| way to get started.
| Jare wrote:
| Plans are useless, but planning is essential. IIRC Nintendo
| had been operating for decades before they shifted to
| videogames. And Glitch (the MMO that gave birth to Slack) was
| also very much a product with a plan. Plan failed, or
| execution failed, or the industry shifted, or something else,
| or all or the above. But for sure it was not just "a bunch of
| talented people."
| StilesCrisis wrote:
| Nintendo was founded in 1889 and basically predates
| electricity in the home. I think they did a very successful
| job pivoting to new forms of entertainment as they arose
| over the years. Not a planning failure in any sense.
| neom wrote:
| https://cdn.sanity.io/files/btop3zhg/production/6cdd8502a5fd...
|
| Closest thing I could find poking around.
|
| Here is an example of one of their core growth plan items from
| the strategy above:
|
| "Social Media Campaigns, Organic and Paid Driving key messages
| around digital hygiene, decentralisation, and security on
| social media platforms to raise awareness."
|
| The whole pdf is basically a collection of the remedial "go-to"
| SaaS growth blog posts everyone thinking about startups read:
| make content, build a community, turn your community into
| advocates, write about things people care about etc etc.
|
| Given I've done this stuff for some 20+ years now, here is what
| is missing and frankly what most folks miss/don't want to
| admit:
|
| This document basically has no ICP, who is the ideal customer?
| What is their persona? Who specifically are they, like, super
| specifically! You can't start with "oh anyone who wants anon-
| privacy first msg'ing!" That would have been like me at
| digitalocean saying "oh it's for anyone who needs a VM" - you
| can't execute a series of steps with that, you can't boil the
| ocean so to speak, we had to work through communities one at a
| time, we did: rails, node, php, devops/config management, in
| that order, split up over quarters and years, maybe it looked
| like we just...did developers, but we didn't, we slowly worked
| our way through all the developer communities slightly
| tailoring towards them while keeping things general enough.
|
| The biggest problem here tho is the classic vitamin vs. aspirin
| problem. They're selling "better privacy" and
| "decentralization" - these are vitamins for the vast majority
| of people - they're things people say they care about in
| surveys but don't actually switch apps for. The 85% of adults
| who "want to do more to protect their privacy" aren't switching
| off WhatsApp. Are they the most secure messenger, or are they a
| token ecosystem with staking? Those attract fundamentally
| different people with different motivations...so just bolting
| them together creates confusion.
|
| Folks need to stop thinking "we're going to do marketing" =
| "we're going to build a business" marketing, go to market,
| growth.. these are tiny components of overall _business
| strategy_. </rant>
| a13n wrote:
| nah. we never had a business plan and are still going strong 11
| years later. 99.999% is a gross exaggeration of reality.
|
| we'll never actually have this data, but I bet there isn't much
| correlation if any between having a business plan and being
| successful.
|
| have you started a successful business?
| array_key_first wrote:
| It took Uber, like, 14 years to become profitable. That
| doesn't mean Uber is necessarily a success, though. They
| could still disappear.
|
| There's a lot of corpse businesses around. The walking dead,
| just operating with zero profit and no realistic plan to be
| profitable. Their investors are usually just stupid _or_ they
| think they can eventually squeeze the market so severely they
| can 't go out of business.
| jonex wrote:
| For my master thesis I did a lot of digging into the research
| on success factors for startups. And at least based on what I
| found back then, you're right. The correlation is weak
| between any factor like this and success. Generally positive
| though, so it does make sense to try doing some planning. But
| it's definitely not a requirement.
|
| In general, observable factors doesn't strongly correlate
| with success. Probably both because there are so many to
| choose from and because the real world is complex and
| typically doesn't align well with any predefined plan.
| kej wrote:
| This kind of analysis sounds far more interesting than a
| lot of the "just do what I did!" startup writing that's out
| there. Do you have any recommendations for further reading
| from this perspective?
| coldpie wrote:
| I suspect you did actually have a business plan, even if it
| was informal & just in your head. Something like "based on my
| experience in this line of work, I can charge about $X for Y
| service, if I get Z sales at that price, it's a viable
| business, otherwise I'll try to do ABC instead." It's light
| on details, but that's still a business plan, you had a plan
| to bring income in. That's fine.
|
| Not having a business plan looks like "we'll release a free
| thing, have no way to generate income, lose money for a few
| years, and then beg for a million dollars." That's not a
| business plan. That's a waste of your time & your users'
| time.
|
| > have you started a successful business?
|
| Not yet, but I am actually working on it! Having a meeting
| with a local business tomorrow to discuss potential market
| pricing options so I have some idea of how much money I can
| expect to make. Business plan!
| anonymous908213 wrote:
| > "we'll release a free thing, have no way to generate
| income, lose money for a few years, and then beg for a
| million dollars." That's not a business plan. That's a
| waste of your time & your users' time.
|
| This is literally the foundation story of numerous billion-
| dollar businesses. In fact OpenAI managed to beg their way
| into a trillion dollars after losing money offering no kind
| of product for many years. It sounds like it's just a
| business plan that you don't like very much.
|
| Off the top of my head, I believe Twitter, Youtube,
| Discord, Reddit, Imgur each had no monetization at all for
| the first 3~5 years of their existence. Or more recently
| there was uv, that write-it-in-Rust Python package manager
| that had no avenue for monetization but received millions
| in investment funding a team working on it full-time until
| successfully getting bought out by OpenAI.
| coldpie wrote:
| Those are actually all pretty good examples of what I'm
| talking about, yeah. Investment money is not income, it
| is debt. It has to be paid back some time, or else your
| business will close. So the users who came to depend on
| the business will get boned when the business either
| closes or drastically changes as they find a business
| model.
|
| OpenAI, for example, is not profitable as far as I know.
| I think the users they have now will be in for a rude
| awakening once they have to come up with a business model
| in order to pay back their investors. Startups that don't
| have a business model and get bought also regularly get
| shut down shortly later, leaving users stranded, look at
| Nest or Keybase for example off the top of my head.
| kritiko wrote:
| Investment money is not debt. Equity and debt are
| different things.
| gbalduzzi wrote:
| > I believe Twitter, Youtube, Discord, Reddit, Imgur each
| had no monetization at all for the first 3~5 years of
| their existence
|
| yes, their business plans was always to engage a lot of
| users losing VC money until you are a platform with
| enough moat to add monetization. It was the plan all
| along
|
| It is the plan for plenty of startups: when it works you
| become a tech giant, otherwise you fail and no one knows
| you
| compscistd wrote:
| I'm not speaking from the startup world, but the sheer amount
| of small businesses that don't do any level of revenue
| forecasting, financial modeling, or even formal budgeting and
| still make a comfortable sum (~$10m assets over the course of
| 10 years) based on instinct is pretty staggering. Personally
| it seems more stressful but that's the leeway experience gets
| you.
| stronglikedan wrote:
| I'd wager most still successful businesses weren't started with
| much of a plan, especially if they offer services instead of
| products. I started mine by paying less than a hundred bucks to
| incorporate on a whim, and was successful for many years. The
| only reason I shuttered it is because it led me to programming
| and I went off in that direction instead. There are many such
| examples everywhere you look, so it's not just anecdotal. I'd
| say that all one needs is determination and a vision.
| KellyCriterion wrote:
| You know, bra, at Sandhill Road offices we call this "to make
| a pivot to challenge more sustainable goals" or so ;-)
| retrac98 wrote:
| They don't say how they plan to avoid a repeat scenario a few
| months down the line.
|
| Donations are fine, but something needs to change or people are
| just propping up a non-viable business.
| cropcirclbureau wrote:
| Surprised to hear this since my understanding was that Session
| was run on a crypto coin based, user hosted onion routing
| servers. Do they mean the dev company behind Session is shutting
| down?
|
| An anecdote I have: a friend once had narcotics shipped intl.
| through Session a few years ago.
| 833 wrote:
| Not sure why it's always a binary: either give us $1M or we shut
| down.
|
| Vast majority of products and services can continue on or near
| zero, with slow or zero velocity.
|
| Really, you can't fire half the team if you have to and keep
| operating?
|
| 1.75M MAU requires very small infrastructure.
| johnisgood wrote:
| Yeah, there is no way they need $1M for the servers, come on...
| miroljub wrote:
| God forbid someone get paid for their work.
| vntok wrote:
| Paid is desirable. Overpaid, not so much.
| Jimmc414 wrote:
| $150k is overpaid for a senior engineer?
| vntok wrote:
| Depends on what "senior" means. Every company has its own
| definition.
| yakshaving_jgt wrote:
| In most of the world, yes.
| Garlef wrote:
| Maybe it's a binary choice for the people who have to maintain
| it?
|
| You can scale down money.
|
| But you can't scale down commitment arbitrarily.
| 0xy wrote:
| I'd love to know where the $600k that Vitalik Buterin donated to
| them 3 short months ago went. I don't think they've adequately
| addressed this question.
| bjord wrote:
| seems like it was $300k (the total was split between simpleX
| and session), but still--fair question
| rvz wrote:
| > In most markets Senior developers often command salaries
| exceeding $150,000 USD per year, and on top of this there are
| legal and operational overheads for running the STF.
|
| Translation:
|
| Our product makes no money, has no use case and we need $1M to
| survive.
|
| Two ways a PE "cost saver" would fix this:
|
| 1. Claude + 1x senior engineer (in India).
|
| 2. CTO + Claude and no senior engineers / employees.
|
| Given we have (allegedly) achieved "AGI" (heavily disputed) they
| don't need as many employees.
|
| Especially those that are after $150k+ which when you can vibe
| code with Claude for less than $10k anyway. /s
|
| Job done.
| mcherm wrote:
| So you are suggesting that a private communications and
| messaging system that proports to offer reliable anonymity is a
| reasonable use case for more-or-less unsupervised development
| by Claude? Because that is just the sort of use case where I
| would NOT trust an unsupervised AI.
| lowdude wrote:
| That is probably the reason they added the /s at the end
| walthamstow wrote:
| Sad. I will need a new way to communicate with my guy.
| roryirvine wrote:
| Ha, and it was also used as a kind of low-rent/unmoderated
| alternative to Onlyfans.
|
| Certainly, there were enough people making money through it
| that they should have been able to cover operating expenses.
| How did they go about appealing for donations - was there a
| notification inside the app, or did they rely on word of mouth?
| blitzar wrote:
| "Gas, grass or ass - nobody rides for free"
| Cider9986 wrote:
| https://simplex.chat is the best option.
| bjord wrote:
| I don't personally use it, but regardless, it'd be a shame to see
| it go
| RandomGerm4n wrote:
| That's not really a big deal since the session encryption was
| insecure anyway. It feels almost like a honeypot after they've
| removed forward secrecy. If you're looking for a decentralized
| alternative SimpleX Chat is a more secure option.
| Jigsy wrote:
| My issue with SimpleX is that the company is in the UK, and
| it's developed in the UK under UK law.
| https://simplex.chat/transparency/
|
| Considering how fiercely anti-encryption the UK is/has become
| (because "only child molesters care about encryption!"), this
| is sadly reason enough for me not to trust it.
|
| Do I believe they have a backdoor in their software? No.
|
| But if the UK passes a law demanding they introduce one...
| seanw444 wrote:
| Or the mature and robust XMPP + OMEMO.
| RandomGerm4n wrote:
| The problem with XMPP is that most clients use an outdated
| and insecure implementation of OMEMO. This includes popular
| clients such as Conversations and Gajim. Currently only
| Profanity and Kaidan use the latest version and you must
| always assume that the encryption has been secretly
| downgraded because the other person is using an insecure
| client. I highly recommend Soatek's blog post on this topic.
| https://soatok.blog/2024/08/04/against-xmppomemo/
| zaik wrote:
| I do not understand the security implications of this
| "Invisible Salamanders" post, but I would prefer XMPP even
| without any end-to-end encryption over a walled garden like
| Signal or Session.
| paulnpace wrote:
| Does that blogger discuss metadata, at all? I'm not saying
| the stuff pointed out in various non-Signal tools isn't
| valid, but I don't see any discussions on the dangers of
| metadata.
| racuna wrote:
| A few months ago, a Session update logged me out. I tried to log
| back in, but my passphrase caused Session to crash. I tried the
| Play Store version, the F-Droid version, and the desktop version.
|
| Support told me that login method had been around for a while,
| and I didn't know it. So suddenly, I was locked out and couldn't
| access MY ACCOUNT. I used to promote Session, but since their
| support response was basically a big "fuck you," I say "fuck you
| too," and I hope people switch to SimpleX.
| Ms-J wrote:
| Session was Australian based which means they would have to do
| all sorts of horrible things when asked by the government, such
| as even letting police impersonate users...
|
| I just checked and they claim to have moved their infra to
| Switzerland.
|
| There are many other issues, some I've forgotten about since I
| would never trust it in the first place. They also require a
| phone number even!
|
| Seeing them go, I feel neutral. It's always good to have more
| anonymity software, just not this for me.
| its-summertime wrote:
| https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2024/nov/05/sessi...
| they moved more than their infra
|
| > They also require a phone number even!
|
| "You don't need a mobile number or an email to make an account
| with Session." - https://getsession.org/faq#identity-protection
| Ms-J wrote:
| From your link, it explains that they have to Switzerland:
|
| "The developer of Session, an encrypted messaging app, has
| moved operations to Switzerland as 'being in Australia just
| threatened our credibility as a privacy tool'."
|
| What else in particular are you talking about?
|
| With the phone number, I may have not remembered correctly
| for this particular software. If I could edit my comment, I
| would add a note.
|
| But when going to the FAQ link I remembered how bad this
| piece of software was especially promoting cryptocurrency. I
| would never want a messenger to promote crypto, such a
| "Signal"
|
| Edit: used different quote from the article
| Youden wrote:
| No legal mechanism with such breadth exists in Australia. There
| was a great deal of overblown media reporting but the law [0]
| makes it explicitly clear that any request that requires a
| "systemic weakness", "systemic vulnerability" or anything of
| the like is null and void. Those terms are defined [1]. Note
| that it doesn't say the government can't request such a thing,
| it says that such a request "has no effect". It's simply dead
| on arrival.
|
| My understanding is that the government could compel Facebook
| to publish a version of WhatsApp with a special mode that sends
| all messages to the police if the user ID is 1234567. This
| introduces a vulnerability but it is limited to one specific
| person. If your user ID is not 1234567, you're completely
| unaffected.
|
| However my understanding is that the government cannot compel
| Facebook to compel a version of WhatsApp that, when it receives
| a special message, silently starts sending plaintext copies of
| every other message it receives to the police. Such a mechanism
| would be a systematic weakness that affects people other than
| those for which a warrant has been issued, so the notice would
| "have no effect".
|
| The government could also not compel a source-available app
| with verifiable builds to stop distributing them so that it can
| add a secret user ID branch like the one I mentioned above for
| WhatsApp.
|
| [0]:
| https://classic.austlii.edu.au/au/legis/cth/consol_act/ta199...
|
| [1]:
| https://classic.austlii.edu.au/au/legis/cth/consol_act/ta199...
| Ms-J wrote:
| "No legal mechanism with such breadth exists in Australia."
| No.
|
| See: https://lowendbox.com/blog/australian-police-will-soon-
| have-...
|
| "These new warrant powers include:
|
| 1. Data disruption 2. Expansion of targeted devices to
| include all devices a suspect uses or might use 3. Account
| takeovers"
|
| Australia is extremely draconian.
| fakedang wrote:
| And a Five Eyes member.
| Alifatisk wrote:
| > They also require a phone number even!
|
| No? Where did you get this from? I have used the app and was
| never asked anything. I was given an id I could share with
| others and that's it. Very simple. I wish more apps had this
| easy onboarding process.
| neuroelectron wrote:
| I could never get it to work and I've tried several times. I kind
| of get the feeling I'm being blocked at the ISP level. We entered
| an era of the Internet where you're just not allowed to create
| secure communications.
| OutOfHere wrote:
| They should keep a single competent and curious senior developer
| who can do it all. In this age of AI, you can make do without
| having a whole team of developers.
| gamegod wrote:
| If you need decentralized messaging and not some cryptocoin
| front, Delta Chat (https://delta.chat/) is what you're looking
| for.
| maerF0x0 wrote:
| I had never heard of this, why session over signal?
|
| Edit: here is a snippet from google AI: Signal
| is a secure, user-friendly WhatsApp alternative requiring a phone
| number, while Session prioritizes maximum anonymity with no phone
| number, onion routing, and a decentralized network
| INTPenis wrote:
| This is extortion.
|
| They're hoping one of the rich dark web drug lords that use the
| app will sponsor them with crypto.
| jasonkester wrote:
| My advice: If you want people to give you money so that you don't
| have to shut down, and you're writing a ten paragraph plea for
| donations, consider using one of those paragraphs to tell people
| what your thing is.
|
| If we knew what it was, we might want to help.
| egypturnash wrote:
| Their logo _actually links to their front page_ for once so it
| 's not too hard to find out that Session is "The decentralized
| private messaging app", even if you're on a touchscreen. No
| need to fuss around and figure out how to get from
| "session.blogplace.org" to "getsession.com" by editing raw URLs
| like I feel happens with half the posts like this.
|
| It could still use a paragraph or two of "why we believe it's
| important for this particular decentralized private messaging
| app to exist when there are about six hundred other
| decentralized private messaging apps out there that nobody but
| people who care passionately about decentralization are using",
| though.
|
| (This is not a question that I feel their FAQ addresses,
| either: https://getsession.org/faq)
| rahimnathwani wrote:
| It's in the footer but yeah
| MallocVoidstar wrote:
| It's Signal but blockchain
| PinkSheep wrote:
| > 65000 USD in donations > enough for infrastructure for the next
| 90 days
|
| 20k per month in infrastructure. Excuse me, what?
| worldsavior wrote:
| They're taking about paying for full time developers.
| PinkSheep wrote:
| Where am I reading this wrongly?
|
| > _approximately $65,000 in donations. This is enough to
| maintain critical Session infrastructure for the next 90
| days._ We are extremely grateful for the support Session has
| received from the community, _but unfortunately this is not
| sufficient to retain full-time developers. As a result, all
| paid staff and developers will have their final working day
| on April 9, 2026. After this date, some team members will
| continue on a primarily volunteer basis to help maintain
| Session until July 8, 2026._
| Trustable8 wrote:
| If it were actually decentralised, it wouldn't really have huge
| costs to worry about...
| palata wrote:
| You mean... developers?
| loloquwowndueo wrote:
| Never heard of Session until today.
| alexdw_mgzi wrote:
| I'm amazed by how many companies I first discover via their
| shutdown announcement on Hacker News.
| TacticalCoder wrote:
| It's sad but I'll forever remember them for having the best
| tagline ever on their frontpage: "Send
| messages, not metadata"
|
| We all know who this is directed at: the project(s) pretending to
| offer privacy but that need to collect your cellphone and that'll
| happily be able to know who you exchanges messages with.
|
| Project(s) whom, moreover, have often weird shills that, if you
| squint your eyes just a little bit, suddenly look like xxxINT
| moles.
|
| So if only for that tagline, thanks a huge lot: metadata are more
| important than the content of the messages themselves and you
| have no privacy if your phone number and contacts are known.
| littlestymaar wrote:
| > To date, the STF has received approximately $65,000 in
| donations. This is enough to maintain critical Session
| infrastructure for the next 90 days.
|
| Excuse me, what?! Spending $22k a month in infra as a pre-money
| startup is insane.
| PinkSheep wrote:
| I've had the same question above:
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47706122
|
| Haha. The wording's equal too!
| ergocoder wrote:
| I've built many apps throughout the years.
|
| One thing that I've learned is that privacy is a secondary
| concern. It's never a primary one.
|
| If your app's main differentiation is privacy, it won't sell.
| Users just don't care about it that much.
| doctorpangloss wrote:
| Inauthentic activity benefits from privacy though. Inauthentic
| activity is a primary use case of ChatGPT, which is way more
| successful than anything you've ever made. Do you think kids
| using ChatGPT to cheat on homework would care if their chats
| were "private" but educators could check if submitted essays
| matched generated content? Uh, yes. So privacy isn't as simple
| of an idea as you think it is, and is certainly extremely
| valuable.
| ergocoder wrote:
| It's a telling that you picked an example where one user
| could access another user's private info in an unauthorized
| way. No famous app does that.
|
| When I say privacy, I mean supporting the company promises a
| stronger privacy mechanism e.g. run locally, e2e encryption
| where the company itself cannot access your private info.
| This is the case for Session.
|
| It turns out most users are okay with you promising not to
| use/access their private info for other means. That's already
| sufficient. Then, other factors e.g. usefulness are more
| important.
| doctorpangloss wrote:
| "When I say privacy, I mean everything that makes me right,
| and everything that makes you wrong."
|
| "No no, that's not what I mean. I mean, privacy is this
| only, specifically this set of technologies applied to this
| very specific set of products, and nothing else. Whatever
| definition will allow me to make this conversation as
| uninteresting as possible."
|
| Look, I guess my point is, privacy is complicated. In my
| example, I suppose OpenAI could authorize access to
| something. They already do, for training. Right? And in
| some sense, something valuable leaks from one users' data
| to another. It is still privacy when access to your data is
| limited in some important way from other people, even when
| you (or a lot of people, or other people) could benefit
| from such access. The biggest apps in the world have very,
| very complicated privacy stories.
| craichead wrote:
| Unfortunately, i could see this coming
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