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I asked Signal motivations for SMS removal

news.ycombinator.com

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Re: I asked Signal motivations for SMS removal

#41

Post by psychphysic »

esskay wrote: post #31
modo_mario wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

SMS is still rather common here in Europe. Even if a ton of people use whatsapp and such SMS is often a safe option to initiate with or something trough which you get certain kinds of automated messages like appointment reminders or verification codes.

Not sure that can be said as a blanket statement for the whole of Europe. In the UK SMS isn't common at all anymore.

I suspect if you book a health appointment in the UK if your mobile number is listen increasingly you will get a SMS notification via Accurx[0].

I do still occasionally get work conversation initiated via SMS rather than WhatsApp especially if that comes from a phone which is associated with a task or job. Like the out of hours mobile phone which is moved between people.

[0] https://www.accurx.com/

Re: I asked Signal motivations for SMS removal

#42

Post by jakub_g »

rjzzleep wrote: post #13
edent wrote: post #9

SMS was, in my opinion, the killer feature for Signal. Telling people to install yet-another-inbox which was only going to be used by their one privacy-weirdo friend was a non-starter. Saying "this is a better SMS app" got people on-board and let them "upgrade" to secure messaging. That's why I started using it in the "TextSecure" days. But, sadly, I agree with Signal's reasoning here. Mixing the two protocols was an…

Problem is Signal people had really odd visions how to make basic functionality work. This isn't really because SMS/MMS are bad(yes they are). But there are threads in their issue tracker where Signal people would disagree with basically functionality of responding to text messages on dual sim devices. "We'll always use the Signal registered number as default". One part of this is a terrible(but working) protocol, th…

One thing you need to keep in mind is that if you want an app with strong security, the less code you have, the easier it is to achieve the goal.

By definition, Signal is not going to have bells and whistles and niche features, to keep the codebase lean and easier to avoid security weaknesses.

If you want an app with many features, use Telegram.

(They did however ship emoji reactions in Signal because most people actually like it and the other apps do have it; curiously missing in Telegram).

Re: I asked Signal motivations for SMS removal

#44

Post by dmitriid »

modo_mario wrote: post #22
apexalpha wrote: post #20

I think you're forgetting the main reason: the group of people using it to communicate is really small and shrinking every year. The only large group of people who still primarily use SMS to communicate person-to-person is Android users in the USA. Every other country has settled on either Telegram, WeChat, WhatsApp or FB Messenger, or other niche apps. These apps work on both iOS and Android and often also Windows.…

SMS is still rather common here in Europe. Even if a ton of people use whatsapp and such SMS is often a safe option to initiate with or something trough which you get certain kinds of automated messages like appointment reminders or verification codes.

I can only offer a personal anecdote. In Sweden the only SMS messages I receive are marketing spam and appointments from various places (from my hairdresser to dental appointments). Everyone else is either on various messaging apps (FB Messenger, Telegram) or chat apps (Slack, Discord)

Re: I asked Signal motivations for SMS removal

#45

Post by medo-bear »

esskay wrote: post #31
modo_mario wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

SMS is still rather common here in Europe. Even if a ton of people use whatsapp and such SMS is often a safe option to initiate with or something trough which you get certain kinds of automated messages like appointment reminders or verification codes.

Not sure that can be said as a blanket statement for the whole of Europe. In the UK SMS isn't common at all anymore.

Same in Eastern Europe, where even mobile calls are giving way to WhatsApp, Viber, etc. This is also a common way to call many businesses

Re: I asked Signal motivations for SMS removal

#46

Post by boomskats »

esskay wrote: post #31
modo_mario wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

SMS is still rather common here in Europe. Even if a ton of people use whatsapp and such SMS is often a safe option to initiate with or something trough which you get certain kinds of automated messages like appointment reminders or verification codes.

Not sure that can be said as a blanket statement for the whole of Europe. In the UK SMS isn't common at all anymore.

Does anything let you configure 2fa via WhatsApp yet? I know there are logistics companies starting to offer it as an email alternative for notifications, but for most automated comms and for contact initiation, SMS is still the standard.

I think it would be more accurate to say that ongoing communication via SMS messages isn't common at all any more. They're like a protocol negotiation handshake.

Re: I asked Signal motivations for SMS removal

#47

Post by bewilderbeast »

I have 2 issues with RCS:

1. Requires data connection, either WiFi or mobile data. SMS does not.

2. On Android, it goes through Google Messages. I don't trust Google.

So, I replaced Messages with another SMS app that doesn't spy on me and disabled RCS. If I wanted to do rich messaging through data connection, I would use Signal or similar.

So, RCS is not a replacement for SMS. It's just another IM protocol. And we have enough of those.

As for others replying through RCS, that's a failure of the messaging app, should recognize that the counterpart is SMS and reply in SMS. It's an attempt to force RCS...

SMS is for fast short messaging between mobile users, and that is its killer feature, it's universal. Every mobile phone supports it.

Signal dropping SMS support makes no difference for me, never used it for SMS, I used Signal for the secure conversations. Two different methods of contact.

Re: I asked Signal motivations for SMS removal

#48

Post by rjzzleep »

jlund-molfese wrote: post #29
Cthulhu_ wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As a Dutch person, I'm still amazed that the US still seems to use SMS as much; mind you, our phone plans here were "you get 1000 text messages and X minutes or a bajillion megabytes of data"; that + 'free' international messaging / calls with services like Whatsapp quickly pushed people to data-only messaging like Whatsapp or maybe FB Messenger. We also have a big immigrant population that like to chat with their fa…

We do generally pay extra for international calls, though text messaging is often free (assuming you’re talking about international states. US states, of course, are all treated as the same country). Almost all phone plans have unlimited (domestic) texting and calling and differentiate themselves with data, reliability and ”free” perks like subsidized Netflix. You really have to go out of your way to find a plan with…

It's actually mostly some parts in central Europe where texting is expensive. For most parts of the world texting is quite important.

I don't understand why people on this board keep forgetting that central Europe and the US is the minority of the world population.

Everyone keeps bringing up WhatsApp. But it seems that everyone has all but forgotten that WhatsApp became so popular not because they only focused on the US market, but because they went around the globe and specifically targeted feature phones as well. I.e. they understood that their own home turf isn't enough to make a dominant chat application.

Re: I asked Signal motivations for SMS removal

#49

Post by persedes »

apexalpha wrote: post #20

I think you're forgetting the main reason: the group of people using it to communicate is really small and shrinking every year. The only large group of people who still primarily use SMS to communicate person-to-person is Android users in the USA. Every other country has settled on either Telegram, WeChat, WhatsApp or FB Messenger, or other niche apps. These apps work on both iOS and Android and often also Windows.…

Where are you getting 80% among young people? A quick google search only returned numbers around 55% among younger people. That's a looong way from a de-facto iOS only country.

Re: I asked Signal motivations for SMS removal

#50

Post by edent »

Cthulhu_ wrote: post #17
edent wrote: post #9

SMS was, in my opinion, the killer feature for Signal. Telling people to install yet-another-inbox which was only going to be used by their one privacy-weirdo friend was a non-starter. Saying "this is a better SMS app" got people on-board and let them "upgrade" to secure messaging. That's why I started using it in the "TextSecure" days. But, sadly, I agree with Signal's reasoning here. Mixing the two protocols was an…

As a Dutch person, I'm still amazed that the US still seems to use SMS as much; mind you, our phone plans here were "you get 1000 text messages and X minutes or a bajillion megabytes of data"; that + 'free' international messaging / calls with services like Whatsapp quickly pushed people to data-only messaging like Whatsapp or maybe FB Messenger. We also have a big immigrant population that like to chat with their fa…

FWIW, I'm not American.

In the UK, where I am, most contracts have unlimited SMS. I think even the cheapest PAYG plans include massive bundles.

Lots of companies send out reminders by SMS because it is universally accepted. Not every customer has WhatsApp.

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