i'm an advocate and adopter of federation in general, but i agree with signal's choice to decline federation. signal is dedicated to one purpose, and that's ac

i'm an advocate and adopter of federation in general, but i agree with signal's choice to decline federation. signal is dedicated to one purpose, and that's accessible e2e crypted chat. federation and interoperability severely complicates onboarding. if you have ever tried to get a "normal person" to use something like mastodon, you understand this risk. federation would also exacerbate spam. moderation is not possible in an e2e private messaging app, and spam is extremely user-hostile, so it's not an acceptable risk. allowing third-party and forked clients introduces a host of problems including automated client behavior that's undesirable in personal communication, malicious client behavior that users may be unaware of, and abandoned clients that lag behind upstream. federated crypto chat exists. if you want that, go use it. if federation is really necessary for your use-case, you will be able to convince the people you are working with to come along. yes, it is the future. but socially, we're just not there yet, and a one-size-fits-most solution is important right now.