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I asked Signal motivations for SMS removal
191–200 of 258 posts
Re: I asked Signal motivations for SMS removal
#192Earlier quoted context omitted.
I don't think that would work, because then they'd just introduce their own messaging standard. https://xkcd.com/927/
> the difference is that matrix isn't trying to become the One True Standard, but just glue the others together. @xkcdComic https://twitter.com/matrixdotorg/status/841424770025545730/p...
I don't disagree that that's the status at the moment.
But the nature of these things is X gains traction. Y wants a piece of X's pie so cuts X off. X realises that it's dependent on the Ys and so launches its own service.
We've seen the this with Netflix. We've seen the former with Twitter.
Ideally the stars would align so that it's in everyone's interests to support an open protocol and we kind of have those in SMS and email. Except these have their own issues.
Re: I asked Signal motivations for SMS removal
#193With Signal moving away from SMS, the required messaging app stack on my phone just to be able to receive everything sent do me will have to be: - Signal -> Close friends & family I've convinced to use it. - WhatsApp -> Most of my friends. - SMS -> School notifications, 2FA, shipping updates, etc. - Facebook Messenger -> Elderly relatives - Telegram -> That one relative who wants to use this instead of Signal. Is the…
> Is there a consolidated messaging app that the HN community recommends?
I am not HN community, but there is Beeper or Texts.com possibly others, there are also (other) Matrix bridges, but it's PITA to set them on your own.
Personally I'd just move family and (old) relatives to Whatsapp and you will have everything consolidated in one app used by everyone anyway. That one relative would have easy choice, either Whatsapp or SMS if they wanna talk to me, not keeping extra app for one special snowflake.
Plus you need to keep SMS app to receive all those codes, shipping updates since Whatsapp sadly doesn't support SMS.
That's also my setup - Whatsapp+SMS, used to have also Signal years ago with family before we ditched it en masse after PINgate for Whatsapp, my mother has also Facebook, I think father only Whatsapp, sister I don't talk to has also Whatsapp, wife has Whatsapp and (Google) Messages which she use just for receiving SMS.
If I would be moving somewhere my family (parents, wife, kids) I'd go for Element (Matrix) - decentralized network, various apps to choose from, no phone required.
Another alternative but without (video) calls would be using some email app like Delta Chat or Mailtime for instant messaging, that would require no signing up for new service, I like the idea, though I guess messages would be quite slow.
Btw. Messenger and Skype (Lite) supports SMS, so since you use Messenger anyway you could ditch SMS app and Signal after they remove SMS, if you wanna keep more IM apps than having everyone on Whatsapp.
Re: I asked Signal motivations for SMS removal
#194Earlier quoted context omitted.
I'm not sure what you mean about a reassigned number? Do you mean that people risk getting a new number, whether they want it or not? Because that shouldn't be an issue - I believe all of Europe (at least EU) demands that the customer can transfer their number to a new provider or whatever, whenever they want. So maybe you mean something else?
> Do you mean that people risk getting a new number, whether they want it or not? It's a ̶̶u̶s̶e̶ pay it or lose it thing. AFAIK, typically applies to prepaid/pay-as-you-go SIMs, not on contracts. For my case, it is that I have to make a 12EUR top-up every 3 months. The top-up credit will expire if I don't make another top-up on time. After a few months on zero credit, you get you incoming calls blocked. And after a…
Ah. That sounds like a strange prepaid SIM. I haven't seen any of those. Assuming that's the same as a prepaid plan. For the latter ones you can go years without topping up, in my experience, but they suffer from the same as any other SIM - if you don't use the phone even once in a year (or sometimes less), then it expires and you can't use the number. I saw someone complain about that because the guy had this "emergency phone" in the glove department of his car, which he never used, until an accident - and then he couldn't call (if it had been serious he could always call 112, I'm not sure he was aware of that). Come to think of it, this happened to a number I and my wife kept on a "loaner" phone we gave to foreign visitors, during the Covid period (no visitors..)
Re: I asked Signal motivations for SMS removal
#195Earlier quoted context omitted.
I think that differs very much per country. The last time I have received an SMS from a human in NL must have been a decade ago. In many European countries, sending SMS was quite expensive, leading to early and very wide adoption of WhatsApp.
Most European countries have had unlimited SMS way before messaging apps where a thing
Not true at all. Most european countries are still pay per message.
Re: I asked Signal motivations for SMS removal
#196Earlier quoted context omitted.
The death of SMS is hardly specific to central Europe and the US. It's already thoroughly dead in most of Asia for person-to-person communication, replaced by WhatsApp/WeChat/LINE/Telegram/etc depending on country.
That's incorrect. Dead for person-to-person communication in east Asia yes, but still EXTREMELY common for everything else. "It doesn't matter for the use cases I don't care about" - what a selfish look at the world. Besides paying for parking by SMS and other services in Europe there's also M-Pesa and similar services[1] [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/M-Pesa
> That's incorrect.
Read before replying. I literally said "for person-to-person communication".
Re: I asked Signal motivations for SMS removal
#197Earlier quoted context omitted.
The answer doesn't always have to be larger governments and more oversight. Users can switch to another OS if they really cared that Apple refuses to use industry standards, hamstrings their own mobile browser to bolster app sales, and violates antitrust laws with their ban on third party browser rendering engines.
The reality is that leveraging closed networks to gain effective monopolies (with all their known harmful effects) is a winning strategy with little counter strategies. Users cannot switch to another OS because if they do they won't be able to communicate with social circle. This is also completely artificial because the networks have otherwise pretty much the same feature sets and are only distinguished by their acc…
> I wager that no single entity should have so many captive users.
100% agree here, we've collectively picked convenience and shiny objects over everything else so often that we're left with a handful of companies with way too much power and reach
> Regulation is clearly in order
I disagree, or at least hope,this isn't our best or only option left. If it is the only thing that would work though, at least its something
Re: I asked Signal motivations for SMS removal
#198Earlier quoted context omitted.
But I have 40 contacts on WA, and 4 on Signal? Everyone on Signal is also on WA and SMS.
"Everyone on Signal is also on WA": not true. I'm not and I know other people who aren't. But of course, this is not the majority. And "on SMS" isn't completely true either: you can have Signal on a landline number (I do have one on my office line), which of course can't receive SMS.
>not true. I'm not and I know
I don't have your phone number. I was talking about my 4 Signal contacts, they are on WA too.
Re: I asked Signal motivations for SMS removal
#199Earlier quoted context omitted.
You're forgetting that there's more than just person-to-person SMS.
No I'm not. I receive automated SMS messages all the time. 2FA codes, parcel tracking, my appointment at the dentist reminder etc... But that's pointless to have inside the Signal app, which is for person-to-person communication. I wouldn't even want those messages in WhatsApp even if it could do it.
I don't see why an SMS app (or Signal) should be unsuitable for M2P.
Re: I asked Signal motivations for SMS removal
#200I 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.…
In Australia, SMS is still fairly widely used for messaging people you're not in usual contact with (to be fair, Facebook Messenger and Instagram are far more popular for communicating in general if you've added each other).