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But I thought moving from the walled garden owned by Facebook to another walled garden owned by a Non Profit Organisation whose main maintainer controls the ent

by as1mov 6y ago

But I thought moving from the walled garden owned by Facebook to another walled garden owned by a Non Profit Organisation whose main maintainer controls the entirety of the platform and discourages any forks/federation would solve all our problems. Surely they would never dare to push shady shit in their application since they are the good guys™. I am shocked.

jeltz 6y ago
Agreed, I never really saw the point of moving to Signal since they always felt shady to me. Why go through the effort to convince your friends to move from one shady chat client to another?
- JeremyNT 6y ago
  Ultimately history has proven your decision to be wise, but there was still a meaningful selling point: Signal was (ostensibly) open source and its developers hadn't yet demonstrated any ill-will or incompetence. Matrix really was not an option in the early days of signal (and arguably still isn't, for most non-technical users). I adopted Signal even though I disliked its centralization, resigned to the fact that it was a poor compromise but the best available. In hindsight, though, Signal coaxed many users into its walled garden by being "good enough," which leads to complacency. That has only distracted us from the true importance of embracing and improving the nascent decentralized alternatives.
Seirdy 6y ago
I criticized both WhatsApp and Signal in an article linked here previously, and made the same points in a bit more detail: "WhatsApp and the domestication of users". Discussion: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25982860 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25982860 A sequel [0] describes how an open platform/protocol isn't a silver bullet, since open platforms can become (or act) closed if we're not careful. It goes over XMPP, email, and Matrix; I described Matrix in a generally negative light but I think it still shows promise. [0]: https://seirdy.one/2021/02/23/keeping-platforms-open.html https://seirdy.one/2021/02/23/keeping-platforms-open.html TLDR of [0]: the key is to combine open platforms/protocols with simplicity and diversity.
dunefox 6y ago
Yeah, I am a bit annoyed that I got several people to switch or at least use Signal, with the whole WhatsApp thing. Now I can't really recommend it and I feel like I have used up my influence on people when it comes to recommendations for apps.

by as1mov 6y ago

jeltz 6y ago

Agreed, I never really saw the point of moving to Signal since they always felt shady to me. Why go through the effort to convince your friends to move from one shady chat client to another?

JeremyNT 6y ago
Ultimately history has proven your decision to be wise, but there was still a meaningful selling point: Signal was (ostensibly) open source and its developers hadn't yet demonstrated any ill-will or incompetence. Matrix really was not an option in the early days of signal (and arguably still isn't, for most non-technical users). I adopted Signal even though I disliked its centralization, resigned to the fact that it was a poor compromise but the best available. In hindsight, though, Signal coaxed many users into its walled garden by being "good enough," which leads to complacency. That has only distracted us from the true importance of embracing and improving the nascent decentralized alternatives.

Seirdy 6y ago

I criticized both WhatsApp and Signal in an article linked here previously, and made the same points in a bit more detail: "WhatsApp and the domestication of users". Discussion: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25982860 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25982860 A sequel [0] describes how an open platform/protocol isn't a silver bullet, since open platforms can become (or act) closed if we're not careful. It goes over XMPP, email, and Matrix; I described Matrix in a generally negative light but I think it still shows promise. [0]: https://seirdy.one/2021/02/23/keeping-platforms-open.html https://seirdy.one/2021/02/23/keeping-platforms-open.html TLDR of [0]: the key is to combine open platforms/protocols with simplicity and diversity.

dunefox 6y ago

Yeah, I am a bit annoyed that I got several people to switch or at least use Signal, with the whole WhatsApp thing. Now I can't really recommend it and I feel like I have used up my influence on people when it comes to recommendations for apps.