It was a lot easier to convince people (and myself) to use signal when it also did SMS. When that feature was removed it certainly felt like another app to worry about.
this post was submitted on 15 Jul 2023
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The loss of SMS really diminished Signal's attractiveness as a messaging app. I still use it because moving the few that I have convinced to employ it as a vector for communication to something more obscure would be even more tiresome.
Any idea why signal removed the SMS feature?
Basically, supporting SMS and MMS didn't align with their commitment to privacy and security.
That's kind of sad, but I suppose they have a point.
Yeah, a bad one - a hyper-secire app that no one uses doesn't exactly advance secure communications. That plus wasting dev hours on stories are the dumbest moves I've seen the org take and sure enough, all my friends who really only used signal for a few group chats dropped it all together with the SMS change.
I started moving myself away from signal at that point, but I am stuck with it for the same reason. It almost makes me wish I just stayed pure SMS longer so I was not fragmented on messageing apps
Yep. Once SMS was gone then all my contacts left and I had no reason to keep it. I unfortunately had to install WhatsApp as that was where the critical mass was.
"This is the only one I use. If you need to reach me either do it on that or email me." Worked for my family.
I second this. I made an effort a while back to cut all Meta products out of my digital life. And this was the reasoning I gave to friends and family as well. Especially as I had no interest at all to use more than one messaging app.
Worked pretty well.
Good for you. Now do Alphabet.
Did that years ago already! No Google Account and using other search engines.
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Yup, did the same but suggested SMS instead of email.
Never told them to stop using things like WhatsApp (that's generally counter productive anyways), just that I did due to privacy reasons. Most where fine with SMS, it's on everyone's phone and nowadays so cheap most phones plans include it unlimited (it's all about data bundles and speed here). A year later almost everyone is on Signal after all. Easier with group chats and sending pictures, or when someone is abroad. As as soon as they got some convinience from it they installed the app. A few I still SMS. Also fine.
As long as you're not a jerk about it, my experience is that it's not thát big of a deal.
I am part of a group chat with very old friends who live far away and whom(?) I don’t see regularly at all. They all communicate regularly on WhatsApp and I don’t feel like having the „power“ to say what you suggest.
I thought this was true a couple months ago. Until last month I all of a sudden found out fb messenger no longer allows you to sign out from the app. I'm not sure when the change happened but this pissed me off.
I then started DM folks one by one that I normally talk to to convince them to switch and kept bothering them until they caved in. Then I rebuilt the same groups on Signal. Now most of the folks I converse with on a regular basis all uses Signal group chats.
Yup this is the only way. And kind of makes a point that one is truly enough, although nothing is wrong with a lil healthy competition.
Signal made a foolish decision to remove SMS support from their app. It was a good way to get people in to use the app and build the user base - it's easier to say to people "try signal, it also replaces your text messaging app" than to say "try this other messenger in addition to your texting app and whatsapp and etc..."
When they made the decision it was also announced on a pompous and self congratulatory way in my opinion. They posted a long post talking about being more secure rather than recognising that they were inconveniencing their users by removing a feature. Users can't decide how someone is going to send them a message but they can be advocates for adopting signal when they receive an SMS from someone.
There seems to be a lack of awareness in the Signal team of the strategic benefit of supporting SMS, when you're competing with other convenient but not as secure popular systems like WhatsApp you need a unique selling point. An all-in-one approach was a good trojan horse way of getting signals secure comms into people's lives.
While I believe in Signal I find myself defaulting to WhatsApp and my SMS messenger. Even people I know who do have signal, and who I conversed with previously are preferring to contact me via WhatsApp now. Signal is the more secure and independent option but it's convenience that really drives adoption for a lot of users.
It was not foolish. It was a security decision and the right one. The goal of signal isn't to have billions of users, the goal is to become a privacy and security centered app. If a feature prevents that it should be immediately removed.
Minor UI tweaks would have been sufficient, like dark patterns to encourage sending secure messages to other signal users by default. Instead, they removed a stand-out feature that made new-user adoption so much easier than other apps. Now, they're just one of many secure messaging apps, and they're not the best one in any way.
I recently switched back to android, i was excited to use signal as my SMS client and then encourage my friends to use it as well. Now there's no reason to choose Signal at all.
They can pat themselves on the back all they want, but im convinced they made the change for the same reason causing so much enshitification of the internet these days: they want to lock-in their users.
How is it locking in if it is obvious they did something that 1) many people don't like and thus left signal for and 2) as you pointed out, they have many identical competitors? That's not convincing at all given the other parts of your argument.
If your contacts use Signal, and you don't want to use signal anymore, you'll need to convince your contacts to switch to another messenger now. You used to be able to stop using signal if you wanted without inconveniencing your friends, now you're locked in.
many people don’t like and thus left signal for
Is there any evidence of this? Because if anything, anecdotally, I've seen an increase in my circles and I've stopped trying to get people over after I convinced my small circle to hop on.
Anecdotal here : all my friends but one group chat dropped signal all together
Fair reply, but my point still stands, although maybe I was too vague. I would prefer data vs "well my experience is..."
So why do they only allow users to signup to Signal with a phone number? If they really were about privacy and security, they should allow signups via username+password only.
There so much money to be made for just knowing who is talking to who. Who is using the app and when. Even if they can't get at the content of your messages.
I don't trust them one bit.
You confuse privacy and security with anonymity, they are different things. Also, with the sealed senders option, the sender are hidden.
The person I'm talking to is allowed to know who I am so I'm not anonymous. Signal doesn't need to know who I am. It doesn't matter what you call it, that's the feature I'm waiting for to motivate a switch.
That said, I looked up sealed senders. They really do go above and beyond to end2end encrypt as much as they possibly can.
It's just a shame that they insist so hard to tie user accounts to phone numbers.
Signal doesn't know who you are. A number don't reveal your identity, and, usually, you should be just a gov. entities to discover that. Does matter what you call it: Signal is for privacy (they have your number, but they don't know who you are, who you write and what you write), not for (full) anonymity (they don't have any information, including number, on you).
Anyway, they're implementing the username too.
@Dienervent @andrewm @citytree @animist @BananaTrifleViolin
Signal was originally designed with phone number as the key identifier. This is to facilitate contact identification and building the social graph. The real issue is not that you need a phone number to register with signal. The problem is signal exposes the phone number to all people with whom you communicate, including in groups. That is a big privacy concern, especially if you a part of large groups where you don't want everyone to see your phone number. This is a well known issue and the solution is to have disposable usernames along with ability to hide phone numbers from contacts.
Signal is currently working on these and some previews are available already. Hopefully that should be released soon.
Honestly, I think the problem here is that people have the habit to use the wrong app for a specific use. Signal is, conceptually, similar to WhatsApp, Built for discussing with people you already know (for WA is stated on the website too "Friends and family"), not for any stranger people in the world. So, it shouldn't be used for that, app/protocol like Matrix, Threema and Telegram fit better that purpose
First, you're conflating privacy with anonymity.
Secondly, they are one of the few orgs (maybe only?) that have been subpoenaed multiple times and they've published documented evidence [0] that even when compelled by law to present all the info they have on any specific user, all they know is:
- The date you created an account
- The last day (not time) one of your clients messaged their
Feel free to trust whoever you want, but the source code to Signal's clients and server are open for anyone to criticize, and they have been. They're not perfect, nobody is, but they're also one of the few orgs out there showing that they're willing to put up or shut up.
Criticize in a constructive manner. Don't be dismissive and spread FUD by stating "I don't trust them" without backing up understanding the Signal threat model and mixing up privacy & anonymity.
That was such a stupid decision, I deleted Signal after that
There aren’t any. People keep using the app which all friends, family and coworkers use. Those people “have nothing to hide”. And quite frankly, I deleted Signal and Telegram also from my devices.
Interesting that it's Signal that is the final straw, and it wasn't Whatsapp or Telegram or Snap or Facebook Messenger etc. This is a choice to draw the line here, and it's likely because you're the only one asking for it, when the others are already meeting the needs, because that's where everyone already is.
Honestly wish a matrix client that made Facebook,discord,sms,signal, bridging existed. I also hate jumping between chats. People know signal is the way to a hold of me (it's on my computer and phone!), Sms/calls are the next, and anything else is like throwing paper airplanes at my house.
Beeper kinda does this. But I don't trust anything with my Signal messages
That's something I don't really understand: the Signal app is a small app and installing it on your phone takes 30 seconds at most.
If it's on om your phone it hardly takes any space and only if you get a message it'll light up.
So what's the difficulty...?
Yes I have it installed and active on my phone and computer, no - no one is using it.... 😂
I had a problem with this too, I just deleted my WhatsApp account so if people wanted to talk to me they had to download signal. Worked pretty well.
I don't personally use Signal but I do use a bunch of other tools that the average user balks at (Linux as my daily driver, vim, Libreoffice, a god damned password manager, etc...). Call me defeatist but after years of experience evangelizing to people about these sorts of tools, I've written it off as a lost cause. Most users only care about one thing, "what actual problem that I have does this solve?" -- I'm not even talking about the other uncomfortable conversation of "if I seriously use this what new problems will it create for me?". The median user won't budge on account of a promised solution to a problem that's never bothered them and they've never thought of until you brought it up and insisted that it was totally a big deal.
When the normie alternative is literally on fire that's when you get people willing to make changes. So, if you want to get a lot of people to use Signal, all you have to do is orchestrate a series of huge damaging scandals that people could totally imagine happening to them, and that were only possible because those involved were using more mainstream messaging apps. Short of that I have no idea.
I experienced it too, but I just refuse to use anything else and I‘d rather not write to anyone than use WhatsApp. Thus I lost contact with some people, but it‘s alright, people went with only a few close contacts for most of human history, so I‘m not missing it.
I also still have Email and SMS and calls, so it‘s not like there is no way to reach me if people wanted to.
`"These people are too stubborn to use the app I use to communicate with me."
Proceeds to not install the app they use and thus lose contact with those people.`
Oh the irony
Edit: I just noticed your username and... Yeah!
I have encountered this too. I don't force people to use Signal, but I also don't use any other messenger, so if they want to contact me they will just have the use it and else the content is probably just not that important.
Use Beeper instead.
Actually, it should be easier to convince these people. If they are already used to 2+ IM apps, then what's the issue with adding one more? Ask them if you are important enough for one more app. 😀
Problem is for people who only have one app, and find it too bothersome (or confusing, for non-techie / old people) to use more than one app.
Yes, and I just keep bothering them until they cave in. I'm only interested in getting rid of the other appson my phone and I don't really care if they still choose to use the other spyware apps (I haven't made the full switch either). After all, protecting online privacy is an overall lifestyle and behavioural change, merely switching one platform does nothing. I'm definitely not going to try to convince people why protecting their own privacy is important as I value my time.
Anyone who I message regularly, I say "Telegram/Signal or expect long response times"
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