Behind Signal's push to go mainstream by adding features like iPad support, ephemeral images and video, downloadable customizable stickers, and emoji reactions
The encryption app is putting a $50 million infusion from WhatsApp cofounder Brian Acton to good use, building out features to help it go mainstream. Tweets: @a_greenberg , @nxthompson , @thevowel , @roryireland , and @freedomofpress Tweets: Andy Greenberg / @a_greenberg : Signal has used Brian Acton's $50m gift to staff up (from 3 people to 20) build tons of new features, and vastly scale up its ambitions. “I'd like for Signal to reach billions of users,” says Acton. “I'd love to have it happen in the next 5 years or less.” https://www.wired.com/... Nicholas Thompson / @nxthompson : So @signalapp is going mainstream, which is good! Tho it means adding features that create complexity and, with that, potential vulnerabilities. https://www.wired.com/... Eric Neustadter / @thevowel : I've been saying “Use Signal!” for years, and this is a good opportunity to do it again. Use Signal for texting, and bring your friends and family with you! https://twitter.com/... Rory Byrne / @roryireland : Having followed them from the start it's been amazing to see how far Signal has come along with such a small team. We work every day with people who rely on it for their lives. “@Signalapp Is Finally Bringing Its Secure Messaging to the Masses” https://www.wired.com/... @freedomofpress : The team behind Signal messenger is growing, and rolling out new features to support mainstream adoption of encrypted communications https://www.wired.com/...
Context & Ripple Effects
Two years after Brian Acton put $50 million into the newly formed Signal Foundation, the encryption app is spending that endowment on a deliberate identity shift: staff has grown from roughly 3 people to about 20, and the roadmap now includes iPad support, ephemeral images and video, customizable stickers, and emoji reactions — the vocabulary of consumer messengers rather than activist tooling.
The strategy is explicit convergence with the app Acton co-founded: Signal's broader arc includes copying WhatsApp's UX while pioneering end-to-end encryption, and Acton frames the goal as reaching billions of users within five years.
First-order effects
- Signal's existing base of journalists, dissidents, and privacy-conscious users gets a feature set that removes the everyday friction — no iPad, no disappearing photos, no reactions — that kept it from being a primary messenger.
- The 3-to-20 hiring ramp converts a one-time donation into permanent engineering capacity, making feature velocity a funded commitment rather than volunteer output.
Second-order effects
- WhatsApp, whose own cofounder is funding its closest privacy-focused rival, faces an awkward benchmark: Signal is matching its interface while claiming stronger privacy defaults, pressuring Meta's messenger to justify the difference.
- Mainstream features broaden who adopts Signal beyond its core constituency — groundwork that showed up months later when US downloads surged amid the BLM protests and Signal became a default for protesters and organizers.
Third-order effects
- If the pattern holds, secure messaging consolidates around nonprofits able to sustain nine-figure operating budgets — Signal later disclosed roughly $50 million in annual running costs and a plan for encrypted backups in 2025 — rather than around ad-funded platforms.
- A nonprofit incumbent changes the industry's reference point: competitors are measured against privacy architecture they cannot match without restructuring their business models, and funders like Acton become the mechanism by which that alternative stays solvent.
The trend: Consumer messaging is splitting into two models — ad-funded platforms and donor-funded nonprofits — with Signal's spending of Acton's $50M marking the moment the nonprofit model began competing for mainstream users rather than just the privacy fringe.