Indeed from outside STF seem like a pretty strong foundation with a plan lied out and everything, but the reality says a different story.. Session is on life support
Session is asking for a community investment of 1million dollars, which i would say is alot considering the short period of time they have left, but not alot considering the size of operations that they have
the STF has received 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.
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.
Session plans to donate the rest of the money to the EFF in case this fundraising campaign turns out to be unsuccessful
We also want to assure you that if the STF is unable to secure funding sufficient enough to meet its goals within the next 90 days, any donations that cannot be used in accordance with the STF's constitution will be publicly donated to the Electronic Frontier Foundation.
28 Comments
warmaster@lemmy.world · 43 pts · 130d
I don't get why they need 2 senior executives and developers that charge 12,500 USD per month.
It's strange to say the least.
favoredponcho@lemmy.zip · 22 pts · 130d
Bloefz@lemmy.world · 14 pts · 129d
You don't have to do your development in silicon valley though. If they do it in Europe or even India it'll be a lot cheaper
favoredponcho@lemmy.zip · 8 pts · 129d
mitch404@sh.itjust.works · 10 pts · 129d
150K for a dev in Switzerland is a very high salary. 145K for a senior dev with architecture and product ownership, maybe, but a simple senior dev is usually more around 130K. I'm a dev working in Switzerland. Also even though Switzerland is small, there are important salaries differences between towns. That's a high salary in Zurich, way too high for Neuchatel for example. Austria is cheaper.
[edit] Ooooooh forget what I said. I didn't consider the amount was in USD and not CHF. 150K is actually 118K in CHF, which is a good salary don't get me wrong, but not very high. Perfectly on par for a senior dev. Cost of life in Switzerland is VERY high.
verdi@tarte.nuage-libre.fr · 4 pts · 130d
skarn@discuss.tchncs.de · 4 pts · 130d
15000€/year gross? In Portugal that's slightly above minimum wage. Might be okay in the middle of the countryside. There should be plenty of skilled programmers racing to live there, right?
The cost of living in cities is quite inflated by digital nomads and wealthy retirees and is starting to be unaffordable for Portuguese.
Edit: 15000 USD is 12800 EUR, that's a few cents an hour above minimum wage. And Poland costs already more than that BTW.
queermunist@lemmy.ml · 4 pts · 129d
The cost of living is inflated by retail speculation and landlords, not whatever you think is happening.
Bloefz@lemmy.world · 2 pts · 129d
Ok the 1/10th is a bit exaggerated. But it is far less than in the US.
WiryClover@piefed.social · 1 pts · 130d
150000$/year, you left a zero out.
egrets@lemmy.world · 5 pts · 129d
They were responding to the last bit:
Specter@piefed.social · 0 pts · 128d
It’s not per year, it’s per month.
skarn@discuss.tchncs.de · 2 pts · 128d
Can't really anyone read? Poster above said Portugal or Poland cost 1/10th of the budget above.
And plainly no. In Poland you might get away with spending half.
NoMoreCocaine@lemmy.world · -3 pts · 130d
WTF you're talking about? 15k PER MONTH! Not per year! Read before writing multiple paragraphs of total crazy talk (well, it sounds like crazy talk with the right context.)
egrets@lemmy.world · 4 pts · 129d
This is ironic -- you're the one not to have read and understood the comment. Note the last line:
porous_grey_matter@lemmy.ml · 1 pts · 130d
Specter@piefed.social · 3 pts · 128d
Wtf $150k a year for a developer is huge. Only in the US, maybe Switzerland, are those wages practiced.
In Europe you’ll get about half of that and that’s still a good wage. I hate the amount of out of touch devs who think getting paid 6-figures is normal.
Well, you see how well that works out, when the session system can’t even sustain itself due to the cost of labour lol.
unitedwithme@lemmy.today · 20 pts · 130d
Maybe Session was doomed from the get go with such high expenses!
Samsy@lemmy.ml · 11 pts · 130d
I've always been skeptical about session. Their old name was Loki Foundation and they ordered a CageCode in the US.
monovergent@lemmy.ml · 3 pts · 129d
Pardon my ignorance, why would those be suspicious?
Samsy@lemmy.ml · 1 pts · 129d
Yes, that requires some explanation. In a country like the United States, applying for public funding is essentially the same as working with government agencies. In the rest of the world, things are often different.
jenesaisquoi@feddit.org · 8 pts · 129d
I mean, there is also Signal
Nyadia@lemmy.blahaj.zone · 11 pts · 129d
It's infinitely harder to make anonymous one-off/throwaway Signal accounts, so they have different use cases for me. I have one phone number, so I only have one Signal account with my real name on it to talk to my friends and family. If I want to privately message someone who I'm not quite sure I can trust with my identity there's no way in hell I'm giving them my Signal.
EvenOdds@lemmy.zip · 1 pts · 128d
Agreed, it's great that session doesn't require a phone number. But what channel do you use to share session IDs? I only use session to talk to people I can validate their identity face to face. You risk a MITM attack if you share the ID over an insecure channel.
timbyte@lemmy.ca · 7 pts · 130d
What happened to the 128 Ethereum Buterin donated to them back in November?
phoenixz@lemmy.ca · 4 pts · 129d
So is there a true open source chat program that requires no account (so full anonymity) and has good encryption for privacy?
JustEnoughDucks@slrpnk.net · 6 pts · 129d
I think SimpleX is the only one that fits that.
Sadly, the developers started crypto NFTish integrations last year. It is still too early to see if their use of it will end up being good or a slippery slope into crypto scams.
leviathan@feddit.org · 4 pts · 128d
DeltaChat and ArcaneChat (Fork)
According to the DC devs, it's dirt cheap to run Chatmail servers :)
Count042@lemmy.ml · 2 pts · 128d
As someone not affiliated with Deltachat, but who runs a chatmail server, it is dirt cheap, can run on almost anything, and simple to set up.
Although, I do have 20 years of operations experience, so that last bit may just may be me.
LightYagami@lemmus.org · 1 pts · 126d
ArcaneChat is good. +1
FineCoatMummy@sh.itjust.works · 1 pts · 126d
XMPP with encryption extensions (OMEMO)
You can easily host a server yourself, no big tech. It's light weight. Open standard so lots of client to pick from, no lockin. Supports sending pictures, videos if you want.
NGC2346@sh.itjust.works · 1 pts · 128d
All i was doing with it was transfer some things from a phone to another, nobody around me wanted to bother setting it up because they have iMessage.
Sucks that its struggling, i would've loved to see it take off in the mainstream.