Correct. We spoke to our attorneys and found the breakdown in communication. We are working to rectify and reinstate signal-desktop ASAP. Sorry for the confusion.
I remember this pretty clearly. I always liked the $0.99 per year model because it was pure and simple. However, it was a three way decision with Mark for it, Jan somewhat on the fence, and me against. The primary argument being that payment was artificially hindering growth. Frankly, our growth was just fine at the time. History tells us how the decision landed.
When Jan and I evaluated XMPP in 2009, we found that it was not very mobile friendly. To provide a couple of examples -- (1) The login path required an inordinate number of round trips (I think it was 4+). This slowed down login quite considerably. (2) XMPP is byte verbose and expensive on mobile networks.
We came to the conclusion that XMPP was built for desktop computers connected to strong internet via LAN connections not for mobile networks. We went on to invent our own protocol which was byte efficient and minimized roundtrips.
Now take all of this with a grain of salt. It is now 2018 and things have changed considerably.