I’m willing to bet they receive a last minute large fund to keep them on. It often happens, no?
I’m not sure I have the same sentiment. They had plenty of time to do things better and improve and perhaps I’m jaded because they have not - but these are facts too. Not a personal opinion.
Survival of the fittest applies to tech too I suppose. I really wished they did better and not fucked around too much wasting time (for whatever reason, not all of which I’m sure is legitimate).
Why? If they aren’t competitive let them fail so more money can go towards other projects.
True. But when you get a ton of capital from venture capitalist is it really survival of the fittest?
Also, lots of big tech companies have received funding from the government, i.e. the taxpayer.
Why should I root for them to fail? It’s not like I have given them money. I just think that their project is worthwhile. At the very least I hope they get another year of survival to see what they are capable of doing with that lease. Also, I use Session, and I want to keep using it. I just want it to be a better app.
I said that because its applicable when they don’t get any additional VC or such funding. I like the idea of Session. I just don’t like how it was run and how it was developed or rather and more accurate “developed”.
It’s not rooting for them to fail. It’s letting the chips fall as they may without additional interference.
I like their messenger, probably the most anonymous messenger out there. I am inclined to donate. I hope they will survive until they launch the pro version and they will be able to monetize it.
That’s fair.
What qualifies as adding interference? It is simply choosing to donate? Although I didn’t donate, I don’t think there is anything wrong with donating to Session. Also by sharing and talking about this story, we are making more people aware of it, and to some degree influencing some of them to donate. Some commenters in this thread have already been inspired to donate. I guess what I’m saying is, I hope Session get another shot at turning things around, and make the best of that opportunity if they get it.
Someone bailing them out now.
and
These are contradictory to me. But okay.
What about their first attempt makes you feel confident enough to say and wish this from them?
As in a single or handful of rich individuals, or literally anyone, including legions of supporters and users? Either way, hoping they don’t get the funding they need is not being neutral. It’s rooting for them to fail, which is anyone’s right if they feel Session has been given too many chances.
This
I didn’t say that’s what I am hoping for. Like I said, let the chips fall where they may though I’d prefer without additional interference (because they are asking for money without showing they can do good things with the potential Session still has, because.. again, lack of any real development). Read this statement as indifference from my end. I’m apathetic to their efforts here. Not anti Session or the idea of Session inherently. More the issue with management.
Unfortunately, I think this might be their best shot, but it’s good that they are still appealing to all of their users. As I said, if there are no strings attached and it’s a bunch of random anonymous rich individuals who don’t expect anything in return, I don’t take issue. But if it’s venture capitalists, that is a bad sign.
I guess that make sense.
As far as I know there aren’t any free alternatives to Session that work the same way with no phone number requirement. If there are, I may have less qualms about Session shutting down. But convincing strangers on the internet to talk to you on another platform, which is what I use Session for, is very tough sell. Especially when the platform is unknown.
SimpleX, DeltaChat, XMPP with encryption enabled (Cheogram, Monal, Conversations)
The only difference is quality of the app, service, encryption, etc. But in my view, they all work well for what they’re trying to deliver.
But we should enable Signal taking off with network effects. Others can remain niche for select use cases (whatever they may be).
If they’re all free and cross-platform, that is actually promising.
I love Signal. I use it every day as my primary messaging app, and I hope their user base grows exponentially. That being said, Signal requires a phone number, and even with just a username, I don’t want to use it to talk to strangers on the internet. I’d rather use a separate messaging app for that. Mixing my chats with family and friends with chats with random internet strangers is not something I want to do.
That’s some serious VC funding they’ll need. And with VC funding comes them breathing down necks to make a profit. They will compete with Signal, and ultimately will lose. Signal simply beats them in balancing main stream adoption with ease of use of contact discovery (that can be disabled as well). It’s a good enough threat model to apply to many individuals for wider adoption, which already competes with WhatsApp as it is.
What is the Session Technology Foundation (STF) doing that is too much to ask the community to do? Session and Lokinet are open source, thus if the STF goes bust I wonder if the community who want to keep Session alive could run with the baton. I’m well aware it takes great effort to develop and maintain software and the devs were backed by stable income for this effort. I merely wonder if community control is feasible.
Releases for multiple platforms, and all the Q&A and fixes that entails. Governing the “dev wallet” hardcoded into the protocol. Whatever is happening on Arbitrum, smart contracts etc.; I can’t keep track of that frankly. Rewriting Lokinet and trying to integrate it into the protocol, while the existing onion request implementation needs to keep working. Issuing hard forks for the work chain (remains of Oxen) as the node code gets updated, while the work chain that communicates with the Arbitrum chain, which includes some testnet work I would assume. Maintaining their staked nodes (for what is now very little ROI) and monitoring network node health overall. Maintaining the central file server. Receiving bug reports from everyone. Writing blog posts. Running their Community server.
And I’m sure there are things I’ve missed. And yes, you could reduce this list to focus on the important stuff, to make it somehow maintainable. Still, in a way, they’ve made themselves indispendible.
It is in my opinion very telling that the business plan is on its knees even after using its get-out-of-jail-free card. It’s almost as though chasing growth is a short-sighted approach for a project of this caliber. We’ve seen many open source projects succeed thanks to contributor-based governance models, and yes, they come with their own challenges, such as slow decision making — and Session definitely can’t reach the same grants as more mainstream foundations might. But they could’ve gone this route on day 1. They could have; instead, they relied on a crypto-based incentive structure that promised to generate value based on the value of the product.
It seems the outside world may be setting Session on the right track after all. After I spent so much time taping over the app’s imperfections, it also feels freeing to me to “let the chips fall where they will.” Only time will tell how much the project will change to mirror the tried-and-true patterns of FOSS. But I strongly suspect it won’t come out looking the same.
I always wondered when their monetization was going to pan out. They really should have made this known months in advance. I wonder why they didn’t.
I just got a notification through Session’s app announcing their likely shut-down.
They should have notified users from their very first campaign, if not sooner. They are really going to need a miracle.
TL;DR: The Session team received enough donations to keep maintaining Session until July 8. They say they need an estimated USD$1 million to launch Session Protocol v2 (PFS, post-quantum, secure device management) and Pro (ecosystem sustainability).
Does the notification you received suggest otherwise?
No. It says pretty much the same. My point was that the app notifications about the risk of Session shutting down should have been sent sooner. I found out about what was going on through social media. Not the app.
Reminder from Techlore’s @henry-fisher that Session will almost certainly shut down in 8 weeks.
If there are in important communities or people you message there, ask them if they are available on other E2EE platforms. For privacy businesses like the Proxy Store, I hope they join platforms like SimpleX chat that doesn’t require a phone number or usernames.