this post was submitted on 19 Aug 2024
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Privacy
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Before Signal made the boneheaded move of removing SMS support, it was so much easier for me to pitch the idea of using Signal to my friends and family, most of which eventually did make the shift from SMS to Signal messages for reasons like ease of use when it came to group chats, sending images/videos, voice clips, etc.
But now? Now it's one of those embarrassing moments where I hear back from people basically all saying "your tech recommendations are usually on point but uh, what happened with Signal???" because the app just abruptly stopped supporting SMS and ruined the seamless appeal. SMS support was the perfect way to ease people into shifting towards Signal messages and now the only damn people I know who still know Signal are my most privacy-minded friends/family, while everyone else has switched back to WhatsApp.
Clearly I'm not bitter...๐ But I mean like, come on. I had the most notorious luddites in my social circle make the switch to Signal and they loved it. The shift from SMS to Signal messages was so smooth so many of them didn't even have that "I miss [SMS stuff]", plus they LOVED that Signal could be used on their laptops in addition to their phones. Ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh this annoys me so much.
What were you using SMS for?
SMS is still the dominant message format in some countries
Doesn't every phone have an SMS app? What's the benefit of having SMS in signal?
the core benefit was in adoption. it was easy to get parents, for example, saying that they jist have to bother with one app for all of their messaging.
the minute they have to contend with sms and signal, they don't mind adding whatsapp in the mix as well.
Conversely, they do mind having multiple apps and only send sms
I mean, if the main draw-card is convenience, then signal isn't going to have much holding power (especially when combined with the network affect problem and attentions grabbing design of other message apps).
Signal will only really succeed if there is a critical mass of people in your circles who care about security to some degree (it works well for me for this reason).
Not having to guess which app has the person you'd like to contact.
The benefit is that Signal displaces the default sms app and is also Signal. Rather than having to jump between 2 apps.
Well, they partly took that "feature" away because people thought they were sending encrypted SMS messages which is not true. False sense of security.
They just took the secure high road and ditched SMS. It also made the app leaner with a smaller attack surface.
I think they did the right decision. Signal is the secure choice for the masses.
Having said that, I'm using Molly-Foss as it has less footprints, no Google messaging framework, leaner than Signal, with no crypto payment, and an encrypted database at rest.