> I cannot fathom the proliferation of phone-only messaging apps. Because they work. Not ideally, but reliably. I can pick up my phone, and actually message

> I cannot fathom the proliferation of phone-only messaging apps. Because they work. Not ideally, but reliably. I can pick up my phone, and actually message my friends, and I don't have to debug why my open source Linux client isn't compatible with their open source Windows client, or their XMPP server doesn't want to talk to my XMPP server, or figure out which identifier they're using today. Signal takes away choice, and delivers a product that works. Which beats a product that is theoretically "better" (multi-device support, desktop support, ...) but in practice cumbersome or just not up to the task (e.g. because my friends aren't using that messenger, or OMEMO messages are not decryptable because someone mismanaged their key, ...) Moxie made all the right choices, even and especially where unpopular: Aggressive action against alternative clients to keep their existence marginal and ensure a consistently good user experience, phone numbers as identifiers to overcome the network effect, etc. In order to be useful, a messenger has to support mobile - I will want to talk to my friends when I'm on my way to meet them. So for a desktop messenger it's either flawless multi-device support or failure, and the former just doesn't seem to be achievable yet. A desktop-only messenger is useless because it doesn't meet my needs when I most need it; a mobile-only messenger is a bit annoying, but works 100% of the time, even when I'm using a desktop, because my phone is also nearby.