I think you're missing the point. All I was saying is that both Signal and Graphene are both nonprofits and both seem to be doing okay with their donations business model.
And donations aren't just a euro here and there from users. Proton is rumoured to be one of Graphene's supporters.
Asking for someones email when they ask for your whatsapp is weird.
Yes it is. But that's not what I was suggesting.
being able to communicate with friends and family
I made the switch 6 months ago and can communicate just fine. Friends and family.
more important than software evangelizing
Its not evangelising, I've just chosen not to use WhatsApp, FB messenger etc. If other people want to surrender their personal data to Meta have at it.
Even if they charged 1.99 they'd be making a decent cut for future investment (they are a nonprofit).
GrapheneOS lives on donations too. Its definately possible.
SMS has issues if youre traveling a lot or want to send large files
Okay email?
Im not going to ask someone I just met to install a new app
They can only say no. And if they do, their loss.
I've never had this problem. If they don't want to download Signal and can't cope with basic SMS then tough luck.
I'd probably still use it if I had to pay for it
I just love ads! Especially when they get in the way of what I'm trying to do!!
I'd forgotten about this!!
Voyager for Lemmy
I'd say that they are. Graphene has to serve up the installs for all the different devices they support. That's a lot of data to shift. On top of that there is pumping out updates every second day. Then there is user support. All of these will scale.
I don't know why this point is so important to you. Of course the two organisations aren't 100% comparible but there are strong similarities. Both are tech, both nonprofit, both offering a free product for the greater good and both rely on donations. Both will have costs that scale - they might not be the same to-the-penny but they will exist. Thats just the nature of the beast.