At the risk of stating the obvious: there is real benefit to using an entirely decentralised open source comms system like Riot.im (Matrix) or Conversations (XM

At the risk of stating the obvious: there is real benefit to using an entirely decentralised open source comms system like Riot.im (Matrix) or Conversations (XMPP), where you can pick precisely which app to run, who to trust to build that app, who to trust to advertise your public keys, and who to host your server. It's inevitable that big centralised services like WhatsApp or even Signal are going to be under pressure from governments to support lawful intercept; in many countries it's essentially illegal to run a communication service that can't be snooped under a court order. Multinationals like Facebook are neither going to want to break the law (as it ends up with their senior management getting arrested: https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2016/mar/01/brazil-police-arrest-facebook-latin-america-vice-president-diego-dzodan https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2016/mar/01/brazil-po...) - nor pull out of those territories (given WhatsApp market penetration in Brazil is 98.5% or similar).