The tech industry–its products, conceptual frameworks, linguistic conventions, and cultural norms–is largely centered in the US (and, increasingly, China. But we’re focused here on the US, where Signal is based). This is not because the US has better programmers or more visionary entrepreneurs, but due primarily to historical material conditions. For example, early investments in networked computation from the US military, which happened around the same time that the US was becoming a global superpower, which was followed by the privatization and then commercialization of networked computation, then the dot com boom, etc. etc., and here we are.