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A great deal of human communication is dedicated to signalling high rank/superiority, or demonstrating familiarity/intimacy.[1] In the case of HN, very few peop

by nickff 6y ago

A great deal of human communication is dedicated to signalling high rank/superiority, or demonstrating familiarity/intimacy.[1] In the case of HN, very few people know much about Moxie, so the only useful signal they can convey is expertise. Many people come here because of their technical or product development background/interests, and the way they show expertise is by second-guessing technical, user interface, and other issues. As a result of this combination of constraint and desire, we get a bunch of comments where HNers talk about how they'd make Signal (as well as every other product) better/more useful. [1] From Deborah Tannen's works

cwyers 6y ago
Huh. I did not expect a serious and insightful answer to my entirely rhetorical question. Thank you!
saagarjha 6y ago
I think this is an uncharitable view, and while it might be true in some cases it is certainly not always the case. Many times the people who point out issues with Signal do it not because they think they want to show off, but because they honestly are frustrated that no product seems to meet their needs and Signal has specific issues that matter to them. I honestly believe “Signal is stupid for relying on phone numbers and SGX” is really just “I don’t trust this things, they have a track history of having issues, I would really like to use this service and am sad that you chose to do this”. Hacker News is often not very good at conveying what it is trying to say, but I remain optimistic that it’s more than a intellect measuring contest.
- est31 6y ago
  I remember the outrage quite well when Facebook started spamming ads to the phone numbers of people who were forced to give Facebook phone numbers for "security" purposes and promised to never been shown ads on those numbers. Or when Jack Dorsey's Twitter account was hacked because of SMS 2fA. Last, phone numbers are general identifiers used in the search boxes of various data collection tools. Maybe you can search by the Threema ID as well, but that requires the tool to be a tiny bit more sophisticated, and that means the people who like to invade privacy of are a bit more frustrated. That isn't "smartness signalling" or whatever, that's a real concern.
  - sa1 6y ago
    The phone number was the only thing that was preventing them from keeping metadata such as usernames on their servers(until they introduced the PIN). It was a tradeoff between two concerns.
eeZah7Ux 6y ago
> signalling high rank/superiority Please leave this social darwinism propaganda out of HN.
monoideism 6y ago
I really don't think folks like nullc (one of the prominent critics here) need (or care) to signal rank here. Saying that's driving the criticism is an easy way to write it off.
lozaning 6y ago
He's got a master mariners license, which to me is way more cool than any of the computer stuff. Legally captain a merchant ship of any size, of any type, operating anywhere in the world.
- nickff 6y ago
  Also made a neat documentary about getting a sailboat and gunk-holing in the Caribbean.

by nickff 6y ago

cwyers 6y ago

Huh. I did not expect a serious and insightful answer to my entirely rhetorical question. Thank you!

saagarjha 6y ago

I think this is an uncharitable view, and while it might be true in some cases it is certainly not always the case. Many times the people who point out issues with Signal do it not because they think they want to show off, but because they honestly are frustrated that no product seems to meet their needs and Signal has specific issues that matter to them. I honestly believe “Signal is stupid for relying on phone numbers and SGX” is really just “I don’t trust this things, they have a track history of having issues, I would really like to use this service and am sad that you chose to do this”. Hacker News is often not very good at conveying what it is trying to say, but I remain optimistic that it’s more than a intellect measuring contest.

est31 6y ago
I remember the outrage quite well when Facebook started spamming ads to the phone numbers of people who were forced to give Facebook phone numbers for "security" purposes and promised to never been shown ads on those numbers. Or when Jack Dorsey's Twitter account was hacked because of SMS 2fA. Last, phone numbers are general identifiers used in the search boxes of various data collection tools. Maybe you can search by the Threema ID as well, but that requires the tool to be a tiny bit more sophisticated, and that means the people who like to invade privacy of are a bit more frustrated. That isn't "smartness signalling" or whatever, that's a real concern.
- sa1 6y ago
  The phone number was the only thing that was preventing them from keeping metadata such as usernames on their servers(until they introduced the PIN). It was a tradeoff between two concerns.

eeZah7Ux 6y ago

> signalling high rank/superiority Please leave this social darwinism propaganda out of HN.

monoideism 6y ago

I really don't think folks like nullc (one of the prominent critics here) need (or care) to signal rank here. Saying that's driving the criticism is an easy way to write it off.

lozaning 6y ago

He's got a master mariners license, which to me is way more cool than any of the computer stuff. Legally captain a merchant ship of any size, of any type, operating anywhere in the world.

nickff 6y ago
Also made a neat documentary about getting a sailboat and gunk-holing in the Caribbean.