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Stories Are Coming to Signal

github.com

21–30 of 152 posts

Re: Stories Are Coming to Signal

#21
post #16
post #9

This seems like such a strange addition. My use of signal is primarily group chat or as an SMS replacement. It is hard for me to see the benefit of adding stories like this to what to me is a tool for directly messaging specific individuals. I would be interested in hearing from people who think this is a good change.

I can discreetly share text, images or videos with a subset of my contacts all at once without bothering them in a private conversation. They all appear in order and in full without some algorithmic trickery, they get flushed after a day or so and my friends can decide if they want to give them a look or not. It's a very nice feature especially for the kind of general stuff that I wouldn't want to personally send to…

Yes! I love stories. They are a subtle way to share cool stuff and avoid to be seen as annoying if you are the type of person that likes to share nice things ^^

Re: Stories Are Coming to Signal

#22
post #14

First they destroyed WhatsApp, now Signal is next. Stop developing features. Fire all PMs.

If reliability and other features don't suffer, why do you care? Just don't use it. Though I do wish they'd prioritize editable messages and formatting before stories...

Your last sentence is the whole problem -- time and glucose are not infinite, and thus what goes in determines what else doesn't make it

Re: Stories Are Coming to Signal

#24

First they destroyed WhatsApp, now Signal is next. Stop developing features. Fire all PMs.

Apparently they have too much money? I thought I donated to help them be a strong encrypted messaging app and survive for the long term. Not to tack on a bunch of social media features.

Hmm. Knee jerk I agree. But aren't stories just expiring photo/video messages sent to multiple people without notifications?

Seems like the fundamental nature of the service will not need to change much.

Re: Stories Are Coming to Signal

#25

First they destroyed WhatsApp, now Signal is next. Stop developing features. Fire all PMs.

Apparently they have too much money? I thought I donated to help them be a strong encrypted messaging app and survive for the long term. Not to tack on a bunch of social media features.

What I think keeps me and many of my friends in East Africa hooked on WhatsApp is the ability to post statuses (stories). It gives me a strong reason to come back to the app as it helps me with conversation starters. I frankly might love if signal has it.

Re: Stories Are Coming to Signal

#26
post #9

This seems like such a strange addition. My use of signal is primarily group chat or as an SMS replacement. It is hard for me to see the benefit of adding stories like this to what to me is a tool for directly messaging specific individuals. I would be interested in hearing from people who think this is a good change.

I share your indifference to the medium, but people out there do occasionally publish stories if such feature is available. If Signal makes it possible to say "you can keep publishing your stories too" when joining, and as a result more people move off WhatsApp (or, more generally, embrace the idea of platform independence), I can pinch my nose and enjoy the long-term side effect.

Re: Stories Are Coming to Signal

#27
The development of Signal, sorry to put it harshly, seems to suffer from a split brained syndrome. On one hand they’ll focus on adding stickers, stories and other trivial features to help appeal to a broader user base, but on the other hand they’ll refuse to implement basic and important features that people need in a chat app, like chat backups (there is no backup option for iOS, only a device to device transfer…so if you lose or break your device or switch to a new device after selling your old one, your chats are all gone).

I don’t recommend Signal to others because its priorities don’t match mine and that of others I know. I do use it, but I treat it more like a fragile platform where anything can disappear any moment. Don’t share or keep anything valuable on it.

The fact that Signal is another centralized platform that not only requires a phone number but also exposes your phone number to others (like in group chats) are larger issues for me.

I’ve been trying Element (from Matrix), but its UX is quite poor. I just wish chat apps would copy at least some of the UX of Telegram.

Re: Stories Are Coming to Signal

#28
post #21
post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I can discreetly share text, images or videos with a subset of my contacts all at once without bothering them in a private conversation. They all appear in order and in full without some algorithmic trickery, they get flushed after a day or so and my friends can decide if they want to give them a look or not. It's a very nice feature especially for the kind of general stuff that I wouldn't want to personally send to…

Yes! I love stories. They are a subtle way to share cool stuff and avoid to be seen as annoying if you are the type of person that likes to share nice things ^^

Exactly, and those who want to reply, can do so directly, not filling up a long group chat with messages that are meant for just the original person.

It allows broadcasting to a group and people to opt in to watch and reply.

Re: Stories Are Coming to Signal

#29

The development of Signal, sorry to put it harshly, seems to suffer from a split brained syndrome. On one hand they’ll focus on adding stickers, stories and other trivial features to help appeal to a broader user base, but on the other hand they’ll refuse to implement basic and important features that people need in a chat app, like chat backups (there is no backup option for iOS, only a device to device transfer…so…

I tend to agree. I want to be able to use the same account on two phones. I'm not the only one. Yes, there are workarounds, but ffs, come on already.
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