121–130 of 649 posts
This is going to seriously harm their user base. I've used signal for years, but will have to drop it with change. People aren't interested in maintaining several different messaging apps.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
The network effect of signal not being a hub for SMS and e2ee will mean less people using e2ee, IMO.
A few years ago I would have agreed, but right now Signal is doing just fine taking users from WhatsApp (FB TOS changes + ads + social group analysis)and Telegram (sketchy non-e2ee, Russian owned, based in the middle east).
It would make more sense if there was one codebase that supported all apps. And then I could make a "silo" for each use case. I would make one icon for activism, one for work, one for friends. The first one must use E2EE, the second one must use my company's Rocketchat, etc..
It's a pity Signal doesn't allow third party clients. I really hope somebody makes a rouge multi protocoll app, like Pidgin used to be. I bet a dedicated small team could make it in a year.
I support this decision, I don't use SMS and I'm in support of everything that kills SMS. Next step: Please stop using phone numbers as a user ID. I have lots of throwaway phone numbers, but many people don't want to leak their phone number to every single person they want to have an encrypted conversation with.
I've been a user for nearly 10 years and still only a few people in my circles uses Signal. If they go through with this, Signal is as good as dead.
Well for what it’s worth it sounds like you weren’t really using Signal for secure messaging anyway… so not much of a loss.
It's not like I wouldn't still want to message him, right?
Convenience is extremely powerful in getting the layman to adopt this kind of tech, and I feel like it should be prioritized.
I for one welcome the change, because my phone does not have an SMS plan (data only) and the "send by SMS" is a bit confusing. A messaging app should have one clear behavior per interface. This was "maybe secure, maybe not". I have an SMS app for that (well, VoIP-sms, because I'm weird).
> "send by SMS" is a bit confusing Can you say more about what's confusing about this for you?
and the workflow when adding someone is different (waiting for approval or not).
This is an awful decision. I've converted some friends and family to Signal over the past years (it took a while) and it is now their default messaging app on their phones. This is going to confuse them and is going to make it difficult for me to keep convincing them that Signal is the route to use. ("Why do I need 3 apps (Android Messages, Signal, Whatsapp) to talk to people?")
I don't know anybody else who uses Silence so I could exchange encrypted messages with them.
Oh well. Maybe somebody here could resurrect this?
I think the real rationale for this change is signal believes this will push user adoption. If User A (who uses the signal app) regularly communicates with User B (who doesn't), then this change might encourage User A to ask User B to join signal. It makes a stronger network effect, and will increase viral growth. However, I think the Signal team is misguided, and in fact they will just lose users who don't want one…
Conversely, the inconvenience of having multiple messaging apps could cause User A to stop using Signal. Look at what happened with Hangouts when they dropped SMS support.
I think the real rationale for this change is signal believes this will push user adoption. If User A (who uses the signal app) regularly communicates with User B (who doesn't), then this change might encourage User A to ask User B to join signal. It makes a stronger network effect, and will increase viral growth. However, I think the Signal team is misguided, and in fact they will just lose users who don't want one…
Now that it's just some random chat app with its own protocol I could not be more allergic to their brand.
Hopefully they didn't need my user type for their flywheel.