this post was submitted on 11 Apr 2026
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Privacy

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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.

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[–] warmaster@lemmy.world 45 points 2 months ago (1 children)

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.

[–] unitedwithme@lemmy.today 21 points 2 months ago

Maybe Session was doomed from the get go with such high expenses!

[–] Samsy@lemmy.ml 11 points 2 months ago (1 children)

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 points 2 months ago (1 children)

Pardon my ignorance, why would those be suspicious?

[–] Samsy@lemmy.ml 1 points 2 months ago

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 points 2 months ago (1 children)

I mean, there is also Signal

[–] Nyadia@lemmy.blahaj.zone 11 points 2 months ago (1 children)

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 points 2 months ago

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 points 2 months ago

What happened to the 128 Ethereum Buterin donated to them back in November?

[–] gary_host_laptop@lemmy.ml 7 points 2 months ago (1 children)

what's the infrastructure tho? isnt it decentralized? i understand development costs if you want to have a paid team but maybe slow down development? i dont know, asking for a million bucks sounds like a bit too much

[–] phoenixz@lemmy.ca 4 points 2 months ago (3 children)

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 7 points 2 months ago

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 points 2 months ago (2 children)

DeltaChat and ArcaneChat (Fork)

According to the DC devs, it's dirt cheap to run Chatmail servers :)

[–] Count042@lemmy.ml 2 points 2 months ago

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 points 2 months ago

ArcaneChat is good. +1

[–] FineCoatMummy@sh.itjust.works 1 points 2 months ago

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 points 2 months ago

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.