We estimate that by 2025, Signal will require approximately $50 million dollars a year to operate—and this is very lean compared to other popular messaging apps that don’t respect your privacy.
Element has the same costs as Signal. So far, Element has been lucky in being able to raise money by selling support contracts to governments or companies using Matrix, but even that isn’t enough, which is why Element has been raising money for the Matrix Foundation for almost a year now (with little success).
No but they do have commercial clients, even some government departments.
They’re also trying to sell Element One directly to end users which involved a few bridges like connection to whatsapp, signal and telegram. Not a bad deal for 5 bucks a month IMO, though I run mine myself because I want to.
There’s also beeper which sells a service with (a lot) more bridges than Element One but costs twice the price. Their company sponsors most of the bridge development as they employ the main bridge developer.
