Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Et Tu, Signal?

stephendiehl.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

121–130 of 459 posts

Re: Et Tu, Signal?

#121

Post by dbrgn »

vitno wrote: post #53
petard wrote: post #33

I'm baffled how tech-savvy people like the author are surprised when a seemingly free product suddenly introduce ways to monetize its service. There is no free lunch or to put it in another way, if you're not paying for the product, you are the product.

I'm baffled how people assume this is monetization. Signal has been a nonprofit for years and has no money issues: https://signalfoundation.org . The organization has no formal ties to the alt-coin, although Moxie does. It doesn't monetize the Signal foundation. I'm very unhappy with this, but it's not a monetization scheme.

MobileCoin was advised by Moxie, Signal integrates MobileCoin and the footer at https://www.mobilecoin.com/ states "MobileCoin uses and recommends Signal Private Messenger". There certainly seems to be a link, and I would be hugely surprised if the Signal foundation doesn't have some stake in these MOB tokens.

Re: Et Tu, Signal?

#122

Post by blendergeek »

dividedbyzero wrote: post #94
tw04 wrote: post #82

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Try transferring from an iOS phone to Android. Try transferring messages to a new desktop (you can't). It's 2021, I don't want to be platform locked and none of the other popular messaging apps have that issue.

Last I checked (about a year ago I think) Whatsapp backups were platform-locked as well.

> Last I checked (about a year ago I think) Whatsapp backups were platform-locked as well.

I'm not sure why you are being downvoted. Whatsapp backups are still platform locked to this day. But that may change soon.

https://www.businessinsider.in/tech/apps/news/whatsapp-may-s...

Re: Et Tu, Signal?

#124

Post by Saris »

Lev1a wrote: post #7
enriquto wrote: post #2

Shit. Just as I convinced all my family and friends to move out from whatsapp and I uninstalled the stupid green app. What do we get to do now?

Can't the user just ignore this cryptocurrency BS if they (like myself) have no intention of using it?

You can for sure.

But it seems like a waste of resources by Signal, they could be making the chat part of the app better instead.

Re: Et Tu, Signal?

#125

Post by matkoniecz »

simias wrote: post #20

I definitely agree with the article that it felt a bit like a betrayal. I've pushed some friends and family to use it over Telegram despite significant usability issue, and now I see that instead of implementing some IMO basic features like proper message sync and easy backup when you get a new phone, they prefer to implement a... micropayment system? Based on some niche altcoin which doesn't even exist on mainstream…

I thought about spending my time on promoting Signal, now I am happy that I avoided it.

Re: Et Tu, Signal?

#126

Post by robjan »

medstrom wrote: post #72
simias wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I thought the title was a pretty good hint as to the content of the article, assuming that you're familiar with the reference to "et tu Brute": https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Et_tu,_Brute%3F

"Et tu" implies betrayal, but doesn't specify how.

Probably using people to market and, in some cases, donate to their non-profit then essentially selling their user base to a friend. A perfect example of crony capitalism.

Re: Et Tu, Signal?

#128

Post by tsimionescu »

tw04 wrote: post #82
vodkapump wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> easy backup when you get a new phone I just recently got a new phone, and used the new feature to do this (uses wi-fi direct) and I have to say it seemed like it would be easy enough for non-techy users to use.

Try transferring from an iOS phone to Android. Try transferring messages to a new desktop (you can't). It's 2021, I don't want to be platform locked and none of the other popular messaging apps have that issue.

Whatsapp does, so it's probably not that critical of a feature.

Re: Et Tu, Signal?

#129

Post by Ayesh »

red_trumpet wrote: post #78

I see Keybase mentioned a lot in this discussions (both in the linked article, and in HN comments). Does anyone have a good summary to read up on what happened with Keybase?

After adding features like Git repos and file storage, keybase started their own currency called Stallar (XLM).

They airdropped XLM to Keybase users. About 2 billion IIRC. It resulted in bit accounts for obvious reasons, so they had to make many changes to their original plan.

I converted what I received into BTC, and it looks like XLM is still functional to this date though.

Keybase was a very well regarded app, but users lost a lot of trust with the cryptocurrency news.

Zoom bought Keybase, and we didn't really hear any big news from them lately.

Re: Et Tu, Signal?

#130

Post by niij »

simias wrote: post #28
niij wrote: post #5

Dang: could the title be changed to something more informative? "Signal announces cryptocurrency: opinion"

I thought the title was a pretty good hint as to the content of the article, assuming that you're familiar with the reference to "et tu Brute": https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Et_tu,_Brute%3F

I know the meaning of the saying. But it doesn't say how they betrayed us. Mentioning that they introduced a cryptocurrency is much more descriptive.
Post reply on HN