• schnurrito@discuss.tchncs.de
    50·
    7 months ago

    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.

  • piyuv@lemmy.worldEnglish
    383·
    7 months ago

    “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.

  • Chulk@lemmy.mlEnglish
    283·
    7 months ago

    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?

    • DJ Putler@lemmy.mlBannedBOP
      332·
      7 months ago

      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.

        • DJ Putler@lemmy.mlBannedBOP
          117·
          7 months ago

          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.

          • Chulk@lemmy.mlEnglish
            182·
            7 months ago

            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.

            • DJ Putler@lemmy.mlBannedBOP
              420·
              7 months ago

              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.

              • Chulk@lemmy.mlEnglish
                111·
                7 months ago

                Jesus Christ dude. I’m talking about how you are immediately hostile to everyone in this thread. Get over yourself.

                • DJ Putler@lemmy.mlBannedBOP
                  311·
                  7 months ago

                  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.

      • eclipsez0r@sh.itjust.works
        3·
        7 months ago

        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.

      • DJ Putler@lemmy.mlBannedBOP
        24·
        7 months ago

        Yes, posting wrong opinions would be against the theme of the post, and in fact my account as a whole. That’s pretty standard for programmers who wear bunny suits. If we keep going here one of them is going to show up and post that Soatok person’s blog.

          • DJ Putler@lemmy.mlBannedBOP
            13·
            7 months ago

            I’m here to educate people, not nitpick people and try to pass off my low standards for “secure software” and US government-dependent NGOs as an interest in sustainable OPSEC.

  • glitching@lemmy.ml
    111·
    7 months ago

    not my circus, not my monkeys

    but them positions… as mr. cici famously quipped, that’s alot of buffers

    you really need a VP of eng and then a director of eng and further liaisons until you reach an actual engineer for a shop that has one product?

    again, what do I care, spend it in good health

    • A🔻atar of 🔻engeance@lemmy.mlBannedEnglish
      2·
      7 months ago

      This is basically a parody of the problems with NGO corporate compensation, yes, but I feel like everyone is avoiding the elephant in the room & wishing goodwill to people making e2ee messaging that is only safe for the US government to use. Ask yourself, would the German prime minister even trust this shit?

      It’s not like Delta Chat main development team is even exempt from this, not sure if OP is aware of this but they want the EU to save them. Fat chance guys! Open source developers need a workers government or total independence, or they will discover they are political tools that can be dispensed with when no longer necessary. Just look at the recent pressure on Linux to eject Russian developers.

    • Kilgore Trout@feddit.itEnglish
      8·
      7 months ago

      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.

      • electric_nan@lemmy.ml
        2·
        7 months ago

        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.

      • AlexLost@lemmy.world
        21·
        7 months ago

        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!

    • utopiah@lemmy.ml
      7·
      7 months ago

      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.

      • electric_nan@lemmy.ml
        2·
        7 months ago

        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.

  • albsen@beehaw.org
    133·
    7 months ago

    is the argument they shouldn’t be paid money for their work? or maybe signal shouldn’t be hiring at competitive salaries for highly skilled labor?

    • rautapekoni@sopuli.xyz
      10·
      7 months ago

      Well, the only person on the list with “developer” in their title has the lowest salary, the executives are paid more. And you will not in a million years convince me that corporate suits are doing skilled work in a way to deserve more compensation than people actually making the product.

      • albsen@beehaw.org
        4·
        7 months ago

        that’s a fair comment I don’t know what they do either.

        having seen a few of these org charts this could be much worse. there are 4 salaries related to software and technical improvements of the app and platform.

        most ppl underestimate what kind of infrastructure is required to make anything work at planet scale, including auxiliary functions. I’d be much more interested in where the funding is coming from.

        • DJ Putler@lemmy.mlBannedBOP
          21·
          7 months ago

          Their job is to ensure the nonprofit doesn’t suddenly start making something which can actually help them hide from the US government. Which would be possible since they have the talent.

  • shaggyb@lemmy.world
    2314·
    7 months ago

    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.

      • hitmyspot@aussie.zone
        33·
        7 months ago

        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?

        • pineapple@lemmy.mlEnglish
          41·
          7 months ago

          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.

          • hitmyspot@aussie.zone
            1·
            7 months ago

            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.

  • Skankhunt420@sh.itjust.works
    8·
    7 months ago

    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.

  • pineapple@lemmy.mlEnglish
    81·
    7 months ago

    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.

  • Sims@lemmy.ml
    61·
    7 months ago

    US and the West are ‘managed’ by elite psychopaths that don’t give a shit about ordinary peoples ‘privacy’ or similar fancy tools for the wage-slaves. They have used these tools to try and break through specific nations/groups information defenses. ANYTHING sponsored by the US Oligarchy is either a part of local US control, or an attempt at reaching more people with rich-man propaganda in nations that defend themselves against US lies and color-revolutions…

  • manuallybreathing@lemmy.ml
    61·
    7 months ago

    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’

  • Vegafjord oakframer@lemmy.ml
    4·
    7 months ago

    Sallaries should act as a motivator for better leadership, so these wages, at least in norwegian context, seems to be too high, too corrupting.

  • recklessengagement@lemmy.world
    51·
    7 months ago

    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

    • DJ Putler@lemmy.mlBannedBOP
      11·
      7 months ago

      • talk shit about a bad group chat app

      • angry group chat descends on shittalking

      • none of them have background information on Signal leaking metadata and even the entire message contents in some cases

      • mindless NGO executive worship

      • everyone clarifies they don’t value their privacy in the first place

      We will be doing this again next week. It’s lovely. Nobody seems to understand the downside of demonstrating an entire community has zero combined expertise by demanding spoon-fed information instantly. Lacking any sources that could criticize Signal.

      Do you think it could be related to sanitizing your websites with “anti-disinformation” strategies lifted directly from the people who spy on you & your family? No, no, that’s too far out. Inductive reasoning is impossible. You know this.