4 ms·

Or maybe both of you are on the opposite sides of a false dichotomy. Just sayin'...

walterbell 10y ago
Yes. E.g. centralized Snapchat has a multi-billion market value based on marketing of ephemeral messaging and a fun UX. Despite technical limitations of the marketing claims, they have reduced the audience for their "historical conversations" from "all customers" to "malicious actors", which is a big step forward.
- nickpsecurity 10y ago
  Snapchat created a multi-billion dollar market via centralized tech and money taken in on the promise they'll monetize it (or the data under EULA) somehow while giving app away for free and operating in a pseudo-police state. I was hesitant to think anything good would come of that after the main SMS and Facebook alternative I pushed for mass audience, WhatApp, was acquired by Facebook in one of largest acquisitions in history. (sighs) Also, WhatApp was losing incredible amount of money with its number of users despite using efficient, centralized tech. I bet they'd loose even more if people were mostly sending images. I've been thinking secure, decentralized apps with no advertising or acquisition will cost money to develop that will require paying users. Or some clever freemium model. Also, not in a police state. ;)
  - walterbell 10y ago
    There are perennial claims that consumers don't want privacy, yet Snapchat used the carrot of ephemeral messaging to gain a large initial audience at the expense of Facebook and other competitors. That data point of market demand for non-persistence is valuable, regardless of Snapchat's motivation or the consequences of their technical implementation. In the bigger picture, Snapchat can be viewed as Instagram v2, rather than WhatsApp v2. Instagram educated consumers on the use of filter-driven photography as content creation. Snapchat is extending that trajectory, with filter-driven videos being authored by kids in less than a minute. Where might that lead? AR in the style of Google-funded Magic Leap, i.e. animation overlays on filtered reality, which will inevitably be used for advertising, e.g. http://hyper-reality.co http://hyper-reality.co. They recently launched "connected" sunglasses. Have you looked at http://matrix.org http://matrix.org? They have telco funding and a long-term vision for OSS and decentralization, so are not subject to typical VC/startup pressures.
    - nickpsecurity 10y ago
      "There are perennial claims that consumers don't want privacy" There's perennial evidence that consumers won't act toward privacy except outside of very, narrow constraints. You're analysis of Instagram to Snapchat is correct. Yet, with the carrot of ephemeral messaging, they went to a centralized service who could keep all their stuff to sell to whoever with no security or assurances in the whole process. Similar with WhatApp in terms of assurances. That's the best we're seeing. Whereas, the usable, truly-private apps that jump into any of these markets get virtually no adoption. What you're seeing is the power of marketing rather than delivering privacy. Two very different things. Kind of like how many juices market themselves as healthy and natural while actually being a pile of sugar that might harm you if you consume enough. But people drink that 100% juice kool-aid. We've also seen where that went in the corporate space where virtually nothing is actually secure despite marketing claims and the fact that corporations try to hire people that can make an informed decision about that. Definitely money to be made pressing that button of "ephemeral" on devices that couldn't be that if you tried. Doesn't inspire a lot of confidence for those of us pushing or developing actual offerings that are secure or private. I think more can be done and even maybe widespread but the evidence indicates market will always be dominated by scheming oligopolies of evil companies pretending to protect people with their offerings. Because people don't do better as users or buyers.
      - zigzigzag 10y ago
        No, it's not marketing. That's back to the condescending attitude again. The people who use Snapchat have a threat model that includes the ordinary people around them: parents, friends, friends of friends, etc. It does not include governments or the provider of Snapchat itself. Given such a threat model it makes perfect sense to use something like Snapchat - it isn't the result of "marketing" (do services like Instagram and Snapchat advertise at all? I've never seen an advert for them). The reason decentralised crypto-to-the-hilt products never succeed is they misunderstand the threat models ordinary users are using. Most people fear privacy violations by people who know them in some way - not remote faceless programmers an ocean away who, they figure, don't care about them at all.
cocktailpeanuts 10y ago
If you want to say something like this, at least back it up with something. Anyone can say "You two are both wrong" and sound smart. Also which part of "people don't understand" is not condescending? Funny enough, I watched this movie called Barton Fink last night, and it's a perfect depiction of this nonsense.
- 35bge57dtjku 10y ago
  > Also which part of "people don't understand" is not condescending? How is asserting a fact like that in any way condescending?
  - cocktailpeanuts 10y ago
    Because it's not a fact
    - 35bge57dtjku 10y ago
      It is a fact. Some people don't understand. And even if it were false, that doesn't make it condescending. People are wrong about things all the time without it being condescending.
      - cocktailpeanuts 10y ago
        Go back and re-read the original comment I replied to. You're just arguing for the sake of arguing by taking the words out of context.
        35bge57dtjku 10y ago
        > You're just arguing for the sake of arguing by taking the words out of context. No... I specifically asked because I wanted to know why you thought it was condescending. That's a far cry from arguing for the sake of arguing. And it didn't come off at condescending to me.
- 10y ago

Yes. E.g. centralized Snapchat has a multi-billion market value based on marketing of ephemeral messaging and a fun UX. Despite technical limitations of the marketing claims, they have reduced the audience for their "historical conversations" from "all customers" to "malicious actors", which is a big step forward.

nickpsecurity 10y ago
Snapchat created a multi-billion dollar market via centralized tech and money taken in on the promise they'll monetize it (or the data under EULA) somehow while giving app away for free and operating in a pseudo-police state. I was hesitant to think anything good would come of that after the main SMS and Facebook alternative I pushed for mass audience, WhatApp, was acquired by Facebook in one of largest acquisitions in history. (sighs) Also, WhatApp was losing incredible amount of money with its number of users despite using efficient, centralized tech. I bet they'd loose even more if people were mostly sending images. I've been thinking secure, decentralized apps with no advertising or acquisition will cost money to develop that will require paying users. Or some clever freemium model. Also, not in a police state. ;)
- walterbell 10y ago
  There are perennial claims that consumers don't want privacy, yet Snapchat used the carrot of ephemeral messaging to gain a large initial audience at the expense of Facebook and other competitors. That data point of market demand for non-persistence is valuable, regardless of Snapchat's motivation or the consequences of their technical implementation. In the bigger picture, Snapchat can be viewed as Instagram v2, rather than WhatsApp v2. Instagram educated consumers on the use of filter-driven photography as content creation. Snapchat is extending that trajectory, with filter-driven videos being authored by kids in less than a minute. Where might that lead? AR in the style of Google-funded Magic Leap, i.e. animation overlays on filtered reality, which will inevitably be used for advertising, e.g. http://hyper-reality.co http://hyper-reality.co. They recently launched "connected" sunglasses. Have you looked at http://matrix.org http://matrix.org? They have telco funding and a long-term vision for OSS and decentralization, so are not subject to typical VC/startup pressures.
  - nickpsecurity 10y ago
    "There are perennial claims that consumers don't want privacy" There's perennial evidence that consumers won't act toward privacy except outside of very, narrow constraints. You're analysis of Instagram to Snapchat is correct. Yet, with the carrot of ephemeral messaging, they went to a centralized service who could keep all their stuff to sell to whoever with no security or assurances in the whole process. Similar with WhatApp in terms of assurances. That's the best we're seeing. Whereas, the usable, truly-private apps that jump into any of these markets get virtually no adoption. What you're seeing is the power of marketing rather than delivering privacy. Two very different things. Kind of like how many juices market themselves as healthy and natural while actually being a pile of sugar that might harm you if you consume enough. But people drink that 100% juice kool-aid. We've also seen where that went in the corporate space where virtually nothing is actually secure despite marketing claims and the fact that corporations try to hire people that can make an informed decision about that. Definitely money to be made pressing that button of "ephemeral" on devices that couldn't be that if you tried. Doesn't inspire a lot of confidence for those of us pushing or developing actual offerings that are secure or private. I think more can be done and even maybe widespread but the evidence indicates market will always be dominated by scheming oligopolies of evil companies pretending to protect people with their offerings. Because people don't do better as users or buyers.
    - zigzigzag 10y ago
      No, it's not marketing. That's back to the condescending attitude again. The people who use Snapchat have a threat model that includes the ordinary people around them: parents, friends, friends of friends, etc. It does not include governments or the provider of Snapchat itself. Given such a threat model it makes perfect sense to use something like Snapchat - it isn't the result of "marketing" (do services like Instagram and Snapchat advertise at all? I've never seen an advert for them). The reason decentralised crypto-to-the-hilt products never succeed is they misunderstand the threat models ordinary users are using. Most people fear privacy violations by people who know them in some way - not remote faceless programmers an ocean away who, they figure, don't care about them at all.

cocktailpeanuts 10y ago

If you want to say something like this, at least back it up with something. Anyone can say "You two are both wrong" and sound smart. Also which part of "people don't understand" is not condescending? Funny enough, I watched this movie called Barton Fink last night, and it's a perfect depiction of this nonsense.

35bge57dtjku 10y ago
> Also which part of "people don't understand" is not condescending? How is asserting a fact like that in any way condescending?
- cocktailpeanuts 10y ago
  Because it's not a fact
  - 35bge57dtjku 10y ago
    It is a fact. Some people don't understand. And even if it were false, that doesn't make it condescending. People are wrong about things all the time without it being condescending.
    - cocktailpeanuts 10y ago
      Go back and re-read the original comment I replied to. You're just arguing for the sake of arguing by taking the words out of context.
      - 35bge57dtjku 10y ago
        > You're just arguing for the sake of arguing by taking the words out of context. No... I specifically asked because I wanted to know why you thought it was condescending. That's a far cry from arguing for the sake of arguing. And it didn't come off at condescending to me.
10y ago