Et Tu, Signal? • Hacker News Board

Re: Et Tu, Signal?

#131

Post by tombert » Wed, Apr 07, 2021, 2:00 PM UTC

IgorPartola wrote: post #109

tombert wrote: post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think you hit the nail on the head with "Element is much more like a chat program than a phone messenger". Me and a friend experimented chatting with Element (Riot at the time), and while it certainly "worked", the process of getting everything working was not something I would expect a non-programmer to be able to figure out. We had to finagle different keys across different computers and phones and it was fairly…

> I feel like Element works better as a competitor to Slack or IRC than as a competitor to Signal or Whatsapp. To me it's a competitor to Keybase. "I want to send my co-worker/client an API key that I don't want exposed to the public" is about the only use for Keybase I've had. I have like 5 contacts on there for this reason. Slack/IRC is much more usable for getting shit done, but not being E2E I wouldn't send anyth…

Yep yep, totally think that's reasonable.

I know very little about the intricacies of cryptography, but part of me wonders if there's some way of doing a federated "key synchronization" service similar to keybase.

Re: Et Tu, Signal?

#132

Post by jsmith12673 » Wed, Apr 07, 2021, 2:00 PM UTC

roadbeats wrote: post #107

Signal (messenger, not foundation)’s plan for cryptocurrency was in news 4 years ago already. It can feel like a betrayal but can we put others responsible others for our feelings? How can we expect a company to provide us what we want for free? Robots running on solar power will build them? How about this: stop approaching a monetization problem as if it's a choice being evil vs. not evil.

Signal is a not-for-profit organization.

Re: Et Tu, Signal?

#133

Post by stryan » Wed, Apr 07, 2021, 2:00 PM UTC

everdrive wrote: post #81

I'm afraid we'll always be jumping to new apps. If we jump ship from Signal to Matrix, as some people suggest, then I fear that in 2-5 years, Matrix will morph into something unacceptable, just as Signal has.

Matrix is an open, federated protocol so something like this can't happen. Worst that could happen is bad stuff happens to Element (the flagship client) at which point people can either fork it or simply use another client.

Re: Et Tu, Signal?

#134

Post by ElectricMind » Wed, Apr 07, 2021, 2:01 PM UTC

I don't understand what all the all fuss about. How much money people have really that you need 100 payment apps to send money on top of existing banks? I just wise/transferwise for overseas transfer other than that my bank. You think I am poor minority and don't care about payment drama?

Re: Et Tu, Signal?

#135

Post by vitno » Wed, Apr 07, 2021, 2:01 PM UTC

verytrivial wrote: post #101

vitno wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

> The organization has no formal ties to the alt-coin, although Moxie does. I've tried to rephrase this few times, because it seems too obvious to state, but isn't it a bad thing that a technical "lead" on an app is very likely going to personally benefit from some other technology being shoe-horned into that app? It's his (and the Foundation's) baby, so he of course can, but I can't help but feel like this unholy bu…

It's absolutely absurd. I'd almost be more OK with it if it was a monetization scheme _for Signal_, this seems blatantly corrupt as I understand it.

Re: Et Tu, Signal?

#136

Post by traspler » Wed, Apr 07, 2021, 2:02 PM UTC

okamiueru wrote: post #117

tonyjstark wrote: post #62

This article mirrors my feelings toward this announcement well. I spent a significant amount of time trying out different messaging apps and convincing my friends and family to move over from Telegram and WhatsApp. I used my reputation and their trust in my expertise. The whole blockchain industry is just too mixed with scams that I feel comfortable to have my non-tech relatives dealing with it. It's enough that I ha…

What would you say are the cons of Telegram? I've been highly impressed with the UX for quite some time, but have refrained from pushing it (and the likes) onto friends. My family and friends seems to have slowly drifted towards signal, and I haven't bothered affecting that, but if I would go from a pure UX, I'd suggest telegram. So, I'm genuinely curious to know others' thoughts on it. I have only limited knowledge,…

I am also a happy Telegram user and think it offers amazing UX but if you leave WhatsApp due to privacy concerns, Telegram might not be the right solution. All Groups and by default any other conversation you have are only encrypted in transport between your client and their servers. Also their encryption has been called into question a lot at the beginning.

Re: Et Tu, Signal?

#137

Post by hnarn » Wed, Apr 07, 2021, 2:03 PM UTC

Macha wrote: post #73

Every time Matrix is brought up here, the federation and open spec is criticised as being too slow moving compared to Signal's BDFL approach. Well, this is what happens when the interests of the BDFL and community diverge. If New Vector decided to fuck up Element on the other hand, you could just move to a new client and not deal with marketing a network move to your social network.

> the federation and open spec is criticised as being too slow

To be fair I don't think that the slowness and complexity is being put forward as an example of why Matrix is "bad", but rather as an example of why it can't compete with Signal for "normal" users — and if you want to create something that competes with Messenger, Whatsapp or Snapchat, you need to put "normal" users first, it can't be an afterthought.

Re: Et Tu, Signal?

#138

Post by KingOfCoders » Wed, Apr 07, 2021, 2:04 PM UTC

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.

"I'm very unhappy with this, but it's not a monetization scheme."

It's not for Signal, it's a monetization scheme for Moxie.

Re: Et Tu, Signal?

#139

Post by ethagnawl » Wed, Apr 07, 2021, 2:04 PM UTC

okamiueru wrote: post #117

tonyjstark wrote: post #62

This article mirrors my feelings toward this announcement well. I spent a significant amount of time trying out different messaging apps and convincing my friends and family to move over from Telegram and WhatsApp. I used my reputation and their trust in my expertise. The whole blockchain industry is just too mixed with scams that I feel comfortable to have my non-tech relatives dealing with it. It's enough that I ha…

What would you say are the cons of Telegram? I've been highly impressed with the UX for quite some time, but have refrained from pushing it (and the likes) onto friends. My family and friends seems to have slowly drifted towards signal, and I haven't bothered affecting that, but if I would go from a pure UX, I'd suggest telegram. So, I'm genuinely curious to know others' thoughts on it. I have only limited knowledge,…

I believe the most commonly cited criticism is that they rolled their own cryptographic solution.

Re: Et Tu, Signal?

#140

Post by as1mov » Wed, Apr 07, 2021, 2:05 PM UTC

But I thought moving from the walled garden owned by Facebook to another walled garden owned by a Non Profit Organisation whose main maintainer controls the entirety of the platform and discourages any forks/federation would solve all our problems. Surely they would never dare to push shady shit in their application since they are the good guys™.

I am shocked.