https://signal.org/blog/signal-is-expensive/
Signal is the world’s most widely used truly private messaging app, and our cryptographic technologies provide extra layers of privacy beyond the Signal app itself. Since launching in 2013, the Signal Protocol—our end-to-end encryption technology—has become the de facto standard for private commu...
"As of January 2022, the platform had approximately 40 million monthly active users."[0]
In 2022 they had $30M expenses, so the cost is somewhat under $1/user/year.
They said the minimum donation is there to reduce the viability of scammers using it to check if a stolen credit card number is valid.
Its not about protection or even going unnoticed like the responders say. I've fixed unprotected payment systems on websites, the real problem is they use it to validate CC information as live. By raising the cost, you make other lower hanging fruit more appealing and keep scammers from using your service to test CC info.
Is it just they know they can only charge like $800 before they get shut down and want that extra $4 for themselves? I am still trying to understand the rationale. If I had no morales and a stolen cc, why would I care if it's a $1 or a $5 charge for validation?
I feel like I am learning I don't check my cc info nearly as much as other Americans...
If there's one service where you can check stolen CC info for $1 and another one for $5 you doesn't go with the $5 one for no reason. The $4 extra dollars doesn't matter in itself but that other places are several times cheaper does.
See I would go with the $5 one with the thought process that almost no establishment let's you charge under $5, so if I ever saw something for less than that it would immediately be a redflag.
Half my CCs don't let me set transaction alerts for less than $5-$10, so a $1 or less charge would never notify me, I'd have to be actively checking it every moment of every day to see it immediately.
And yes, I have email/text alerts when possible for every. single. charge. on my CCs at the lowest threshold possible and it has helped at least three times thus far.
The point of scammers using a small value to test stolen numbers is they hope such small transactions go unnoticed for longer, allowing them a bigger time window to use and abuse the stolen card number.