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Automattic buys Beeper for $125MM, launches closed-source "privacy" app (techcrunch.com)

submitted 7 months ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]

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Curious how none of the coverage of this launch mention that the app isn't actually open-source (though they pretend to be an open-source project), which makes all of their claims of "end-to-end encryption" worthless

WordPress.com owner Automattic acquires multiservice messaging app Beeper for $125M

By Sarah Perez (@sarahpereztc) 2024-04-09

WordPress.com owner Automattic is acquiring Beeper, the company behind the iMessage-on-Android solution that was referenced by the Department of Justice in its antitrust lawsuit against Apple. The deal, which was for $125 million according to sources close to the matter, is Automattic's second acquisition of a cross-platform messaging solution after buying Texts.com last October.


Image Credits: Beepercaption

That acquisition made Texts.com founder Kishan Bagaria Automattic's new head of Messaging, a role that will now be held by Beeper founder Eric Migicovsky, previously the founder of the Pebble smartwatch and a Y Combinator partner.

Reached for comment, Automattic said it has started the process of onboarding the Beeper team and is "excited about the progress made" so far but couldn't yet share more about its organizational updates, or what Bagaria's new title would be. However, we're told he is staying to work on Beeper as well.


Image Credits: Beepercaption

Beeper and Texts.com's teams of 25 and 15, respectively, will join together to take the best of each company's product and merge it into one platform, according to Migicovsky.

"[Texts.com] built an amazing app that's more desktop-centric and iOS-centric," he said. "So we'll be folding the best parts of those into our app. But going forward, the Beeper brand will apply to all of the messaging efforts at Automattic," he said, adding, "Kishan ... I've known him for years now

there's not too many other people in the world that are doing what we do

and it was great to be able to combine forces with them."

The deal, which closed on April 1, represents a big bet from Automattic: that the future of messaging will be open source and will work across services, instead of being tied up in proprietary platforms, like Meta's WhatsApp or Apple's iMessage. In fact, Migicovsky says, the eventual plan after shifting people to the Beeper cross-platform app for managing their messages is to move them to Beeper's own chat protocol

an open source protocol called Matrix

under the hood.


Image Credits: Beepercaption

Automattic had previously made a strategic investment of $4.6 million), another company building on Matrix, and it contributes annually to Matrix.org.

Matrix, a sort of "spiritual successor" to XMPP, as Migicovsky describes it, offers an open source, end-to-end encrypted client and server communications system, where servers can federate with one another, similar to open source Twitter/X alternative Mastodon. However, instead of focusing on social networking, like Mastodon, it focuses on messaging.

Migicovsky said the acquisition came about because running Beeper costs quite a bit of money and it was either time to raise more funding or find a buyer. To date, Beeper had raised $16 million in outside funding, including an $8 million Series A from Initialized. Other investors include YC, Samsung Next and Liquid2 Ventures, and angels Garry Tan, Kevin Mahaffey and Niv Dror, and the group SV Angel.

"I've known Matt [Mullenweg, Automattic founder and CEO] for years now," Migicovsky said, adding that the WordPress.com founder had shown commitment to open source technology, like Beeper, where about half its product is already open source. "We were looking to find a partner that could financially support this. One of the reasons why there are no other people building this type of app is it costs a surprisingly large amount of money to build a damn good chat app," Migicovsky noted.

As for Beeper's products, the company has now briefed the DOJ on what happened when Apple blocked its newer app, Beeper Mini, which aimed to bring iMessage to Android. That solution is no longer being updated as a result of Apple's moves.


Image Credits: Beepercaption

Beeper on Android launches to all

The company is instead releasing an updated version of its core app, Beeper, on Android. Unlike Beeper Mini, which focuses only on iMessage, the main app connects with 14 services, including Messenger, WhatsApp, Telegram, Signal, Instagram DM, LinkedIn, Twitter/X, Discord, Google Messages and others. Android is its biggest platform by users, as 70% are on Google's smartphone OS.

In this rewritten version of Beeper, the company is starting to roll out fully end-to-end encrypted messages across Signal. That will be soon followed by WhatsApp, Messenger and Google Messages.

Because of Apple's restrictions, iMessage only works if you have an iPhone in the mix, Migicovsky says, and will not be a focus for Beeper, given the complications it saw with Apple's shutdown of Beeper Mini. However, Beeper is hopeful regulations could change things, pointing to the DOJ lawsuit and FCC investigation. In the meantime, Beeper supports RCS, which solves iMessage to Android problems like low-res images and videos, lack of typing indicators and encryption.

With the launch out of beta, the new app includes a new icon, updated design, instant chat opens and sends, the ability to add and modify chat networks directly on Android (no desktop app needed), local caching of all chats on the device and full message search.

The 10,000 Android beta testers already on Beeper will need to download the new app manually from Google Play

it won't automatically update.


Image Credits: Beepercaption

In addition, the 466,000 or so people on Beeper's waitlist will now be able to try the product. They'll join over 115,000 users who have already downloaded the app, which is now used by tens of thousands daily. The app runs on Android, iPhone, iPad, ChromeOS, macOS, Windows and Linux.

The team expects to have feature parity across platforms in a matter of months as they overhaul the iOS and desktop apps.

In time, they plan to add other services to Beeper as well, including Google Voice, Snapchat and Microsoft Teams. Beeper also offers a widget API so developers can build on top of Beeper. Plus, since Matrix is an open standard, developers will be able to build alternative clients for Beeper, as well.

The app will generate revenue via a premium subscription, where the final price may be a couple of dollars per month, but pricing decisions haven't yet been fully nailed down. Beeper is currently free to use.

Like Automattic, Beeper's team is remotely distributed, with employees in Brazil, the U.K., Germany and the U.S. At present, Texts.com will continue to operate as the teams begin to integrate the two messaging apps.

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[–] [email protected] 56 points 7 months ago* (last edited 7 months ago) (3 children)

Curious how none of the coverage of this launch mention that the app isn’t actually open-source (though they pretend to be an open-source project), which makes all of their claims of “end-to-end encryption” worthless

The most important component to be open-sourced in an app that claims "client-side encryption" is the client, where the encryption actually takes place...

[–] [email protected] 23 points 7 months ago (1 children)

When I first heard of Beeper I thought it was interesting. But reading later that they were buying really old iPhones to jail break them for bridging with iMessage I had some doubts. Now they're bought by the Wordpress people, who also bought Tumblr, and apparently selling user data to AI.. And from what I've read about bridges there is no E2EE with Matrix (what Beeper seems to use) to Signal bridge.

[–] [email protected] 23 points 7 months ago* (last edited 7 months ago) (1 children)

Really, after what he did to Pebble, people shouldn't have been surprised that Migicovsky didn't and doesn't have a plan. You couldn't trust his word on Pebble, and you couldn't trust his word on this.

In November 2022, they flubbed my onboarding to Beeper by not telling me that the onboarding would be a recorded Zoom meeting until I was entering the Zoom meeting. I declined to join the meeting and followed up with questions about their privacy policy. Specifically, I referenced the previous sale of Pebble to a different company, and asked what guarantees there were about the privacy policy staying the same after a sale of the company. It's often one of the first things changed due to "enshittification" when purchased by a larger company, that the "rules" of your relationship to the company change. I never received a response to my questions. I sort of figured the lack of response said as much as a response could have which was "Yeah we don't have any guarantees" as proven by this sale. Like you pointed out, they're merging Beeper with a closed source project, of which the outcome will likely be... another closed source project.

This is a mess and it makes me glad I never gave this charlatan a dime. Spinning up your own Matrix server and bridges was always a better idea, since Beeper was just other people doing that step for you anyway.

[–] [email protected] 15 points 7 months ago (2 children)

This is a mess and it makes me glad I never gave this charlatan a dime.

Thanks for sharing this. Makes me think that the words "open" and "privacy" are sometimes just buzz words used by people who are stuck in their old habits that conflict with the real meaning of those words.

Spinning up your own Matrix server and bridges was always a better idea, since Beeper was just other people doing that step for you anyway.

Exactly. And now that Slidge has landed in Debian repositories, XMPP and bridges gives more choice to people who want self hosting.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 7 months ago (1 children)

Does sludge let me use WhatsApp on my matrix client?

[–] [email protected] 3 points 7 months ago

Guess not as Slidge is XMPP. But Matrix bridge with WhatsApp appears to be possible : https://etke.cc/help/bridges

[–] [email protected] 3 points 7 months ago

“open” and “privacy” are sometimes just buzz words

Yes. Private companies are co-opting the term, and providing source code only after signing an NDA... That qualifies as "Open" but is not FOSS or FLOSS.

[–] [email protected] 9 points 7 months ago (1 children)

The encryption can't be end-to-end anyway. If you send messages between services with different encryption protocols, then you trust Beeper to decrypt your message mid-transit, to then re-encrypt it with the protocol of the recipient.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 7 months ago (1 children)

It could be if the bridge was on the device

[–] [email protected] 3 points 7 months ago (1 children)

The whole point of the Beeper App is to let them handle everything, though.

And even if you self-host, you're still breaking encryption and have to make sure everything is properly secured.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 7 months ago

Not really. If I could have an open source client that will bridge to WhatsApp on my phone, I'd gladly use it.

The reason I don't is because I don't run closed source software on my phone.

[–] [email protected] 7 points 7 months ago (2 children)

Yeah, Beeper is kind of in a strange place now. I get why they wanted to make their own app to make the bridging experience (especially setup) more seamless. But now with a fully custom closed-source app they are even further off the open path.

What I really want from Beeper is to be able to connect to their bridges from a non-beeper Matrix account with a non-Beeper client. I would happily pay them for the service of managing bridges. I don't have much interest in having a Beeper-owned account in a custom Beeper client.

[–] [email protected] 8 points 7 months ago (1 children)

Well, I read on one of the articles that they moved to a custom app so the bridging could be done on your app, so the messages never get decrypted by Beepers servers.

But thats unverified gossip and cannot be verified so long as the repo isnt public

[–] [email protected] 4 points 7 months ago

Yeah, they've been talking about that a lot but it isn't clear if that will be an option or the only option. I wouldn't be surprised if they only want to keep one method around in the long term though.

Personally I don't want the bridges to run on my phone as I want the bridges to work even if my phone is off, out of batteries, not connected to the internet or fell into a volcano. Not to mention wasting battery replaying messages while I work on my computer. It isn't even clear if these on-phone bridges are synced to other devices in the account which would be an absolute deal breaker for me.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 7 months ago (1 children)

Why don't you use ems or another service that offers bridges?

[–] [email protected] 1 points 7 months ago (1 children)

Does EMS offer bridges? Looking at https://element.io/pricing I don't see anything. I seem to recall them having a Slack bridge in the past but don't remember them having a full suite.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 7 months ago* (last edited 7 months ago) (1 children)

https://ems.element.io/element-one

No slack bridge afaik

[–] [email protected] 3 points 7 months ago (1 children)

Also not really comparable to Beeper:

Beeper supports:

Whatsapp

Facebook Messenger

Twitter

Android SMS

Google Messages (SMS/RCS)

Telegram

Signal

Matrix

Slack

Google Chat

Instagram

IRC (Libera.chat)

Discord

LinkedIn

[–] [email protected] 1 points 7 months ago* (last edited 7 months ago) (1 children)

You're right :)

In this sub, most shouldn't even matter 😅

[–] [email protected] 4 points 7 months ago

Unfortunately even in this sub some of us need to talk to people who use privacy-unfriendly options.

So having bridges is a great way to slowly migrate to a private option. I can meet my friends where they are, stop running non-free software and then can slowly move my friends over.

[–] [email protected] 25 points 7 months ago (2 children)

Automattic just buys everything these days.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 7 months ago (2 children)

What product do they own that's a cash cow??

[–] [email protected] 13 points 7 months ago (3 children)

This is the interesting part, looking at their list of acquisitions, none of them seems to be generating any revenue. I only know wordpress, simplenote, tumblr and pocketcasts (lifetime user).

[–] [email protected] 8 points 7 months ago

I mean I expect WordPress.com does make money, but I don't know how it compares to their other sites

[–] [email protected] 2 points 7 months ago (1 children)

So they're using the Embracer strategy?

[–] [email protected] 2 points 7 months ago

EEE + Enshitification

[–] drislands 1 points 7 months ago

Hang on, they own Tumblr?

[–] cosmicrookie 11 points 7 months ago* (last edited 7 months ago)

Jetpack It made 5 mil last year for making wordpress better for the ones who are willing to pay

[–] [email protected] 3 points 7 months ago

Almost... Automattically?

[–] [email protected] 9 points 7 months ago* (last edited 7 months ago) (4 children)

Am i the only one that doesnt trust Matrix? Something about it makes me suspicious

[–] Potatos_are_not_friends 12 points 7 months ago (1 children)

What makes it suspicious? It's a communication protocol.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 7 months ago (2 children)

Several things, but the issues focus around the company running the show, rather than the API. Their 'binding rules' have an outrageous number of loopholes.

"We won't sell any assets ever! Unless... someone buys us. Or if we decide there's a benefit to selling the assets."
"We reserve the right to do whatever we deem fit with non-profit money, so long as it benefits matrix."

Matrix was 'de-federated' from Libera.chat because Matrix admins refused to properly moderate their servers, respect privacy, maintain reciprocity, etc. There's a whole letter explaining the hair ball that occurred.

Their explicit goal is monopoly. Every thing should use our API. Everyone should federate. (Share your data with our servers.)

Companies are companies. Non-profits included. Non-profits are just a way of saying, "We're not going to the stock market, but we can still funnel money into various pockets... especially our own, or people we want to pay money to."

Foss/Floss is about ownership, control, modifiability, ect. being handed to whoever owns it. Matrix is about ownership being shared with Matrix.

It's a wondrous API. Everyone should use it, and set up their own private self-cleaning servers.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 7 months ago

It's also split up into multiple companies under the same matrix umbrella, and some aren't non-profit but still get a share of the donations sent to the matrix org. It's shady and Matrix as a whole just gives me a bad taste in my mouth.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 7 months ago (1 children)

I mean, "if it doesn't suite your needs -- fork it" still stands. As for the lack of moderation -- that's applicable to the official instance, I guess? 'Cause it's like more than a half of all the users, so no wonder they can't moderate everything

[–] [email protected] 1 points 7 months ago (2 children)

no wonder they can’t moderate everything

That would be the case if it wasn't a flagrant violation like, "These matrix rooms are spying on these chat rooms without announcing the users in the matrix room", and Matrix refusing to fix it when informed.

Imagine if Matrix did that to their user base. "We'll occasionally drop in to listen, or pipe your conversation to other people, but you won't see the, "x joined", notice. Cheers!" Creepy spying, the polar opposite of privacy.

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[–] [email protected] 3 points 7 months ago* (last edited 7 months ago) (1 children)

In June 2023, Beeper became the first member of The Matrix Foundation.

LOL.

I've never particularly trusted the corporation behind Matrix messaging. They disrespect the GDPR openly in ways not even Discord does (a GDPR compliant deletion request from a British Matrix.org user to Matrix.org will result in no messages or usernames being deleted).

Matrix's primary goals are keeping your data online as permanently as possible and replicating it across as many services (including more explicitly anti-privacy ones) as possible.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 7 months ago* (last edited 7 months ago)

Wait till you learn about what the Lemmy Devs think about GDPR

[–] [email protected] 2 points 7 months ago* (last edited 7 months ago) (1 children)

I don't like that it does pretty muh the same thing as XMPP but more inefficiently. Like, my Conduit, already a lighter than Synapse implementation, consumes around 100 megs of RAM compared to Prosody's 30.

Also it is worrying how prevalent the central matrix.org instance is. Like, the network is federated, but if you defederate from the single central one - things might break.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 7 months ago

I'm not a fan, but all the alternatives also are sketchy or have usability issues

[–] [email protected] 7 points 7 months ago

Closed source. No privacy then.

[–] [email protected] 6 points 7 months ago

This is the best summary I could come up with:

WordPress.com owner Automattic is acquiring Beeper, the company behind the iMessage-on-Android solution that was referenced by the Department of Justice in its antitrust lawsuit against Apple.

Reached for comment, Automattic said it has started the process of onboarding the Beeper team and is “excited about the progress made” so far but couldn’t yet share more about its organizational updates, or what Bagaria’s new title would be.

But going forward, the Beeper brand will apply to all of the messaging efforts at Automattic,” he said, adding, “Kishan … I’ve known him for years now — there’s not too many other people in the world that are doing what we do — and it was great to be able to combine forces with them.”

Unlike Beeper Mini, which focuses only on iMessage, the main app connects with 14 services, including Messenger, WhatsApp, Telegram, Signal, Instagram DM, LinkedIn, Twitter/X, Discord, Google Messages and others.

In the meantime, Beeper supports RCS, which solves iMessage to Android problems like low-res images and videos, lack of typing indicators and encryption.

The original article contains 1,026 words, the summary contains 215 words. Saved 79%. I'm a bot and I'm open source!

[–] [email protected] 4 points 7 months ago

Maybe they could have spent some of that money on Simplenote maintenance & development.