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Signal Introduces Stories

signal.org

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Re: Signal Introduces Stories

#101

Post by anonporridge »

n8ta wrote: post #65

Removed SMS support and then added stories. Worried about signal's recent direction. Being able to interact with my remaining non-signal contacts was huge. Really going to miss it. In contrast they are now adding a feature I do not care about at all.

Don't forget integrating and pumping a shitty crypto altcoin, completely ignoring the vastly more legitimate and well trusted privacy coin monero while also potentially opening itself up to legal attack vectors for helping to facilitate money transfers, not just protect speech.

Lots of reasons recently to develop deep distrust for Signal leadership, and start calling into question whether the app is still legitimately private.

Re: Signal Introduces Stories

#103

Post by dont__panic »

Disregard this comment. This feature, while disappointing to me, is a fine addition to Signal for many people who would like to use the Story format without snooping or ads from Meta. That is a good thing and we should celebrate it.

I previously commented something much more negative and snarky. I regret it.

Re: Signal Introduces Stories

#104

Post by bogota »

tao_oat wrote: post #95

My gut reaction to this was disappointment that Signal is working on yet another not-messaging feature a la their crypto integration... But the longer I think about it, the more positive I feel. I actually enjoyed using stories on other social media platforms before I left them. The idea of something similar, but end-to-end encrypted, is actually exciting!

The more useful signal becomes to the non tech crowd the better for everyone. Options are good and they are largely competing with WhatsApp although they have tiny market penetration right now

Re: Signal Introduces Stories

#105

Post by autoexec »

KerryJones wrote: post #67

"Give the people what they want" feels like a slap in the face after the decision to remove SMS

And after ignoring all the people who were begging them to provide a means to opt of having their data permanently stored in the cloud.

I'm glad they're giving consideration to people here, but forcing this change on people won't cost them as much as forcing people to the cloud and dropping SMS support did.

Re: Signal Introduces Stories

#106

Post by bogota »

ryeights wrote: post #89
n8ta wrote: post #65

Removed SMS support and then added stories. Worried about signal's recent direction. Being able to interact with my remaining non-signal contacts was huge. Really going to miss it. In contrast they are now adding a feature I do not care about at all.

You can still communicate with your SMS-using friends via the normal means… IMO mixing totally secure and totally insecure communications in the same app (the same list view even!) was always a poor idea.

I agree i don’t see how you can knock signal in anyway for removing sms. What is the argument that this was some huge misstep i just don’t see it

Re: Signal Introduces Stories

#107

Post by dont__panic »

tao_oat wrote: post #95

My gut reaction to this was disappointment that Signal is working on yet another not-messaging feature a la their crypto integration... But the longer I think about it, the more positive I feel. I actually enjoyed using stories on other social media platforms before I left them. The idea of something similar, but end-to-end encrypted, is actually exciting!

I wish they would improve the app UI instead of focusing on features like this. Compared to other apps I use regularly, Signal feels kind of clunky -- the share dialog takes forever to load from another app compared to Telegram or Messages. The app feels like it's harassing me every single day to update. On open, the app often takes a few seconds of loading in my chats. Makes me wonder what core userbase Signal thinks cares about Stories more than a functional app. Half the reason I started using Telegram a decade ago was simply because it was faster than most other apps!

Re: Signal Introduces Stories

#109

Post by dont__panic »

bogota wrote: post #106
ryeights wrote: post #89

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You can still communicate with your SMS-using friends via the normal means… IMO mixing totally secure and totally insecure communications in the same app (the same list view even!) was always a poor idea.

I agree i don’t see how you can knock signal in anyway for removing sms. What is the argument that this was some huge misstep i just don’t see it

It's fine if you don't use SMS in the Signal app much. But a lot of us only downloaded Signal because it could replace the built-in Android SMS app. By dropping the SMS feature, we now have to use N+1 apps just to receive the occasional shipping notification or 2FA message.

I'm glad that dropping SMS means nothing to you. But "i don't see how you can known signal in anyway" for dropping a feature sounds disingenuous.

Re: Signal Introduces Stories

#110

Post by spijdar »

ryeights wrote: post #89
n8ta wrote: post #65

Removed SMS support and then added stories. Worried about signal's recent direction. Being able to interact with my remaining non-signal contacts was huge. Really going to miss it. In contrast they are now adding a feature I do not care about at all.

You can still communicate with your SMS-using friends via the normal means… IMO mixing totally secure and totally insecure communications in the same app (the same list view even!) was always a poor idea.

From an outsider/non-user's perspective, there are two angles to this: dropping the ability to use Signal as your default SMS handler does make the program much more secure, but it also means the barrier for getting new, casual users to onboard much harder. When it functions as an SMS app, you can get friends/family/whoever to install it and set it as default, and it will opportunistically use E2EE when available.

It seems to me like this improves OPSEC for very privacy focused Signal users, but increases the barrier to entry for "casual" users who may not care enough to use a separate app for certain people, but may be convinced to use Signal for SMS.

All that said, I'm not sure how any of that actually plays out in the real world, or if there were that many actual users doing just that.

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