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
6 points (87.5% liked)
The Signal messenger and protocol.
1556 readers
2 users here now
founded 4 years ago
MODERATORS
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.
"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.
So because you have no interest in using more than one app you coerce others into installing yet another messaging app?
That says something about you and it's not positive...
That's obviously not what they're saying. Stop being so negative towards strangers on the Internet.
Stop forcing people to adapt to your choices?
Well, that surely is a two way street, ain’t it?
Others staying on WhatsApp, Facebook Messenger etc and expecting me to be available there is the same „forcing people to adapt to your choices“.
Everyone has their choice, they can adapt another messenger or not. No hard feelings either way. Regarding my data and privacy the choice is mine, and if I don’t want my data in the hands of Meta and Alphabet that is my call to make. No matter how others deem that decision.
"Coercion involves compelling a party to act in an involuntary manner by the use of threats, including threats to use force against that party."
Perhaps you should kindly explain why you think threats are involved in this case?
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.
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.
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.
Anyone who I message regularly, I say "Telegram/Signal or expect long response times"
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.
That was such a stupid decision, I deleted Signal after that
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.
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.
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.
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.