There is an old saying in Silicon Valley: "If you aren't paying for the product, you are the product."
It’s a cynical rule, but 99% of the time, it is true. Facebook, Google, TikTok—they are free because they are running a surveillance operation masked as a social network. Every click, every pause, every eye movement is tracked, packaged, and sold to the highest bidder on the real-time ad exchange.
Winkr is free. But we don't sell ads. And we don't sell data.
This confuses people. "How do you keep the lights on?" they ask. "Are you burning VC money? Are you secretly a crypto miner?"
The answer is simpler and much more boring: We are trying to prove that the Wikipedia Model can work for social media. Here is the math behind our madness.
The Cost of a Connection
Let's open the books. Transparency is the only way to earn trust.
Running a video chat platform is expensive, but not as expensive as you think.
Most platforms use centralized media servers (SFUs) that process every pixel of video. This costs a fortune (bandwidth is expensive).
Winkr uses a Peer-to-Peer (P2P) architecture for 90% of calls.
When User A talks to User B, the video stream goes directly between their devices. It doesn't touch our servers. We just introduce them (Signaling) and step out of the way.
Our Cost Breakdown (Per 1,000 Hours of Chat):
- Signaling Server (Handshakes): $0.40
- TURN Servers (Relaying blocked connections): $4.20
- Database/API: $0.80
- AI Moderation (Computer Vision): $1.50
Total Cost: ~$6.90 per 1,000 hours.
That means it costs us roughly $0.006 to host a one-hour conversation. It is a fraction of a penny.
The "Ad Model" Trap
If we ran ads, we could make ~$2.00 per hour per user.
That is a massive profit margin. 2000% profit.
But the moment you introduce ads, you introduce Misaligned Incentives.
The Ad Trap:
1. To make money, we need you to stay on the app as long as possible.
2. To keep you on the app, we need to feed you "sticky" content.
3. What is sticky? Outrage. Fear. Nudity. Conflict.
4. So, the algorithm starts promoting toxicity because toxicity sells ads.
We didn't want to build a machine that optimizes for outrage. We wanted to build a machine that optimizes for connection.
The Solution: The "1% Rule"
We realized that we don't need everyone to pay. We just need the people who love the product to pay.
This is the Freemium / Patron Model.
99% of Winkr users pay $0. They get a great experience. No ads. No tracking.
1% of Winkr users choose to buy Winkr Plus ($5/month).
They get:
- A "Supporter" Badge (Clout).
- Advanced Gender/Region Filters.
- High-Priority Matching.
The Math:
One "Plus" user ($5.00) pays for the server costs of roughly 800 free users.
As long as 1 in 800 people supports the mission, the platform stays free for everyone. Currently, our ratio is 1 in 300. We are profitable.
Why Privacy is Expensive
The hardest part of this model is resisting the easy money.
We get emails every week from "Data Brokers" wanting to buy our user lists.
"We will pay you $0.50 per email address," they say.
"We want to train our Facial Recognition AI on your video streams," they say.
It is millions of dollars on the table. And we burn the letters.
Why? Because once you sell data, you can never get it back. Privacy is a one-way street.
The "Wikipedia" Betting
We are betting that the internet is changing.
People are tired of being spied on. People are tired of being manipulated by algorithms.
We believe there is a generation of users who are willing to support a platform simply because it treats them with respect.
Winkr is an experiment in Ethical Software.
If we fail, we go broke.
If we succeed, we prove that you don't have to be evil to build a massive social network.
Conclusion: You Are Not The Product. You Are The Patron.
If you are reading this and you use Winkr for free: Thank you. You are the reason we built this. Enjoy the connections.
If you are reading this and you are a Plus subscriber: Thank you. You are the reason we can build this. You are carrying the torch for the other 99%.
Together, let's keep the internet weird, wild, and free.