23 ms·

To be honest I feel a bit disenfranchised. I’ve used all my energy to convert all my friends to signal when the WhatsApp privacy policy fiasco happened and now

• purplecats 5y ago
  > I feel like I will just give up and use WhatsApp and assume that I only had privacy pre-internet. Yup, this is it. The point they've been waiting for us to cross. It was inevitable imo to not give up and surrender to it. It feels like we as a society are slowing transcending from the 4th to the 5th stage of grief.
  • goldenchrome 5y ago
    I don’t think non-nerds really think about privacy online all that much. This privacy catastrophe is only felt in places like HN.
    • godelski 5y ago
      I talk to my friends, parents, and family about it a lot. They don't understand it, but they do care. Problem is that they don't understand how to fight back. They do not want to give up on Facebook. They also are afraid to switch to a service like Signal because "no one is there." So I think they care, but there's a big sense of helplessness. Honestly that's why I like projects like Signal. There's no way I can get people to use PGP through emails, it is too much work. But anyone can use something like Signal.
      • themacguffinman 5y ago
        A distinction without a difference. It matters little how much they say they care if the few taps to download a new app and some nonsense "but what if my friends list isn't totally full, the horror!" fear is what's stopping them, especially when they clearly know someone who can and is willing to help them (ie. you). I wonder how quickly they would switch if WhatsApp started requiring a monthly fee to use it. I get the feeling that big sense of helplessness would suddenly vanish. If they claim to care so much about online data privacy, let them prove it. They've already proven they care a lot about price.
        • saagarjha 5y ago
          Your view of the average user is unnecessarily uncharitable and antagonistic. People want privacy, but they also want to talk to their friends: that much is given. But…to basically any normal user, an app that offers privacy but doesn't let them talk to their friends is useless. Not everyone has the time or ability to go around proselytizing their acquaintances to switch to a new app to talk to them. To be honest, a lot barely have the time to figure out how to use a new app…
          • themacguffinman 5y ago
            So how did they start using chatting to their friends with their current chat service in the first place? By that logic, few people would ever leave IRC or Skype or whatever they started using first. Users move, they just don't move for privacy. The fact that proselytization is even required to move to Signal is telling. Everyone has time and ability to make their own choices with like-minded friends. They do it for everything else, that's how they started using WhatsApp and co in the first place. Their claims to caring about privacy are as convincing as a friend who keeps telling you "sorry, I'm too busy", "another time then?", "maybe", repeated ad nauseam. Then you see them at another party with someone else confusingly named "WhatsApp" and you realize they just couldn't make time for you, who is named "Signal". Again, look at how quickly users switch when a service requires payment (IIRC WhatsApp did try to do this once and a lot of users chose to leave instead of paying). They're just too busy & helpless, right? How much proselytization did that take?
            • scrollaway 5y ago
              Whatsapp built its userbase over several years. It did so at a time where it had a clear value prop, replacing sms which cost a lot with something nearly free. It grew in popularity in eastern european countries, spread later in europe and then later in the US when Facebook acquired them. This was a process, not a 1-day switch from skype to whatsapp. The network effects are real, and if you don't understand how difficult it is to get people to join a chat app, you won't win.
      • spicybright 5y ago
        Their reasons are completely valid honestly. There's nothing that feels like you have no power than using a chat app with none of your friends on it. Only way to really take power back is make an app better than what's on the market, and have it respect your privacy. A very, very tall order, but I think it's the only way we can really take power away from big tech and give it back to the people.
        • godelski 5y ago
          Sorry for the misunderstanding. I'm not trying to say that their concerns are invalid. They very much are valid. I don't think you can win by just having a better app. Marketing plays a big role. So something like Signal is going to be a major underdog because OSS and freeware don't have the same cashflow to do marketing. What I'm trying to say is that we need to be that marketing. Talking about data and privacy _is_ that marketing.
          • levosmetalo 5y ago
            Sorry but Signal is just not a "better app". Yes, it has privacy and such, but the app itself is worse. I'm not even talking about missing features like not having chat backups, but the UI itself is slow and unpolished. - scrolling contact list is slow and stutters - opening Signal displays empty frame far too long - it's not possible to add/invite a person during the call, you need to define groups for group calls - forwarding message from chat to chat is not working - messages in a chat take too much space. If a person sent three consecutive messages, don't display his name on all of them, just on first one. And the worst thing is those polish fixes don't have to do anything with crypto and privacy. It's purely client side issue, but Moxie & Co. decided their priority is adding MobileCoint inside a chat app instead of polishing existing clients.
            • msrenee 5y ago
              I'm not using signal as my main SMS app because until a week ago, it didn't notify me when I got a text. Which is kind of a problem.
      • kelnos 5y ago
        > They also are afraid to switch to a service like Signal because "no one is there." I've been thinking about this a bit, and I'm going to stop short of asking people to switch, and just try to get them to install it (and maybe even get them to casually suggest their friends do the same, if the opportunity arises). It's a hopefully small, risk-free step to take, and the more people that have installs, the more likely it is that "no one is there" will start becoming not true, even if not immediately.
        • Sunspark 5y ago
          You could show them this Signal commercial. https://twitter.com/signalapp/status/1354915823501025280?s=20 https://twitter.com/signalapp/status/1354915823501025280?s=2...
        • gambiting 5y ago
          I work in tech and I don't know a single person on Signal. It was already hard enough to get my family to start using WhatsApp over the years, and I still get messages from some of them over Skype(!!!!) for some reason. Frankly, I have no strength for yet another switch, I'm staying with WhatsApp for the time being.
          • pmlnr 5y ago
            > I have no strength for yet another switch Pidgin with a shitton of plugins. If the only problem is the migration, that still works as a single client, albeit with drawbacks and hiccups. (I collected them at https://github.com/petermolnar/awesome-pidgin-plugins https://github.com/petermolnar/awesome-pidgin-plugins and yes, it'll need to be compiled, even Pidgin itself for some of the solutions. There's nothing user friendly about it, sadly.) On the other hand... the only system I never had to migrate off is IRC. The funny bit of IRC is that it's not private in terms of security at all, but because it's anonymus, it still feels like it. And so I keep thinking about needs when it comes to privacy: what do I really need in the context of internet communication? Anonymity, privacy, or both? I don't have a definitive answer.
          • tommit 5y ago
            Your mileage clearly varies. Like many people here, I also work in tech. Even before the WhatsApp privacy policy fiasco, there were a good few dozens of my contacts on Signal. Afterwards, there was a push like I haven't seen in all the years I've been using it. Like many people, I'd definitely prefer having just one messenger, but now I simply use Signal with everyone that's on it and only have to open WhatsApp a few times a week. This entire thing has to be seen as a process IMO.
      • Sunspark 5y ago
        It's interesting how people turn into such app misers when it comes to messengers. It's upsetting to have multiple different ones, even though they don't eat up disk space. Some are very loyal to the Zuckerberg offerings. They ride or die with the Zuckster.
        • hackerfromthefu 5y ago
          It's because each app is stealing your data on your phone - personal life, financial things going across your phone. Most of them have been busted, multiple times. It comes down to risk exposure, gotta make a deal with one devil, but you don't want a dozen bad actors ganging up on your data.
    • paulcole 5y ago
      Some HN readers like me also don’t think about privacy much at all. I like the sites and apps that accept my data as currency so that I can use/browse them without getting out my wallet. Plus I like seeing ads for products that I might want to buy. Win win.
    • gala8y 5y ago
      ...but it is a catastrophe, nonetheless.
    • Cthulhu_ 5y ago
      Which is why privacy protection has to come from the top (i.e. regulators), because most people don't know and/or don't care. "we" care, up to the point of "it's too much effort", and "we" have tried to do a grassroots movement to get people to use more privacy-focused apps. But these apps, in the end, are still owned by companies who are not charities; they want to earn money, and digitally, it feels like you can only make money by selling subscriptions, ads, or printing a cryptocurrency - and subscriptions don't work because of (sponsored / investor funded) free alternatives. Anyway, if you put legislation in place like in Europe, the companies will have no choice. In theory anyway; in practice they find and abuse loopholes soon enough, or just do things covertly, hope they won't be found out, and just pay the fine if something does come up. Which they can easily afford by then, not so much from the money they earn from their monetization method, but stock market value.
      • Shmebulock 5y ago
        >Which is why privacy protection has to come from the top (i.e. regulators), because most people don't know and/or don't care. I think there should only be legislation about stuff people care about.
        • beckman466 5y ago
          Looking at the mass surveillance revelations by Snowden and other whistleblowers I'd say many people do care. What makes you say people don't?
• zekrioca 5y ago
  This comment has been shown every time a thread related to WhatsApp/Telegram/Signal is posted..
  • somedude895 5y ago
    I don't get it. OPs comment seems completely unrelated to the article
  • matkoniecz 5y ago
    Exactly the same? Or similar? Because as far as HN bubble/bias/hivemind goes "We like privacy, we like to complain, we dislike cryptocurrency scams" would be a fitting (though partial) description. So people irritated by that change by Signal being heavily represented on HN is not surprising.
• staplers 5y ago
  I felt the same when fax machines started being released with internet connectivity. Needless to say all the fax machine companies went out of business because no one wanted internet features associated with their faxes.
• godelski 5y ago
  > they don’t want anything to do with bitcoins Honestly, this is a bad argument. You can use Signal and never send a gif or stickers. You don't have to do anything with ~~stickers~~crypto when using Signal. It is an opt-in feature that is probably going to not be used my 90% of people. This is just a bad argument surrounding the whole ordeal. Now the arguments about: regulations, Moxie's involvement (stated he has no coins but there's other potential issues), and how the final system will actually look like (e.g. should it be a second app), those are valid arguments that we should be discussing. But the above one just isn't great and I'm tired of seeing it.
  • aloknnikhil 5y ago
    It maybe a bad argument but it's a practical view. Governments around the world (see: India, China) have strict laws around crypto. By law of association, any service that remotely mentions this is severely scrutinized. I can hardly blame my friends if they want no part of this.
    • godelski 5y ago
      They are whitelisting the feature. So this is pretty easy to deal with. Government bans? Take off the whitelist. No more issues. Major services like Google Play will have to deal with this too. Most apps don't work the same way in every single country, they adopt to those countries' policies or get banned.
      • eganist 5y ago
        > They are whitelisting the feature. So this is pretty easy to deal with. Government bans? Take off the whitelist. No more issues. Major services like Google Play will have to deal with this too. Most apps don't work the same way in every single country, they adopt to those countries' policies or get banned. Contrived strawman rebuttal: Government sees app "ThingX" now deals with crypto. ThingX indicates that different variants of the app can interact with crypto depending on the region. Government doesn't care because they're not tech savvy, bans ThingX because crypto.
    • 5y ago
• paxys 5y ago
  They could also use Signal and not have anything to do with bitcoins..
  • Aeolun 5y ago
    Signal will now forever be tainted by crypto, even if the feature never actually makes it into the app.
• deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
• sneak 5y ago
  Good thing then that there won't be any bitcoins in Signal.
  • rawfan 5y ago
    https://signal.org/blog/update-on-beta-testing-payments/ https://signal.org/blog/update-on-beta-testing-payments/
    • sneak 5y ago
      Signal intends to use a cryptocurrency called Mobilecoin, not Bitcoin.
      • daviross 5y ago
        To a reasonable approximation, they're the same thing. (You know they aren't, I know they aren't, I also *don't particularly care, either*)
• lmm 5y ago
  Any time there's a project that's almost open-source, almost open standards, that's how it ends up going. If you'd gone for Matrix you wouldn't have that problem, because even if their developers decide to embed some bitcoin nonsense into the official client, the protocol and ecosystem is much bigger than that.
  • crossroadsguy 5y ago
    That’s true. But there’s another problem with something like Matrix. It’s not to be adopted by the masses by design. The clients/apps are miles away from a nerd/tech savvy person would like to use and another few miles away from the UX non-nerds would want to see. So that’s dba anyway - dead before arrival.
    • 1MachineElf 5y ago
      I'm not associated with FluffyChat, just want to point out that it appears to be a Matrix client that meets the "UX non-nerds would want to see" requirement: https://matrix.org/docs/projects/client/fluffychat https://matrix.org/docs/projects/client/fluffychat
      • deleted 5y ago
        [deleted]
    • CorrectHorseBat 5y ago
      What's wrong with the design of Element? I don't think it's anymore complicated than e-mail and even my grandpa has one of those
      • busymom0 5y ago
        Design isn't the biggest issue of Element imo. The speed it. It's super slow. I used another matrix app (can't remember the name now) and that also had the same issue. And the speed wasn't the app issue I think as everything else worked fine but loading messages and sending them took forever. Has this improved recently?
• crossroadsguy 5y ago
  And the audio calls. It was bad, it’s still bad while crypto is being added. I knew when I started aggressively trying to move friend’s family to Signal that this benevolent dictator thing will backfire someday. I didn’t expect it to happen so soon. Now I still don’t want to use WhatsApp but I don’t know which other messaging app will replace it. I think none.
• JohnJamesRambo 5y ago
  What in the world? They don’t have to use it. This has to be one of the worst arguments I’ve ever seen. Did your friends throw their iPhones in the trash when ApplePay came about?
  • skrebbel 5y ago
    The argument is "this app, which promises privacy and security in ways I do not have the skills to verify, is made by people who also think cryptocurrencies are a good idea". That is a pretty compelling argument to people who think cryptocurrencies are all about scams and/or useless pollution (a sizeable portion of society). It suggests that the people behind Signal may not be as trustworthy as they're made out to be. Whether or not a bunch of competent security gurus on HN assure us that yes, Signal is still great and no, Moxie didn't go nuts, doesn't really influence the validity of that argument outside tech circles. Don't forget that we've all spent years training our aunts and nephews to not trust the companies that make the apps they use. It's a major marketing mistake and they should've known better. Also, ApplePay has nowhere near the same stigma associated with it as cryptocurrencies do, I think your comparison is silly. FWIW, if Signal was new today and someone would pitch me "a super secure messaging app with built-in crypto payments" I'd not easily get enthusiastic. I've been trained to treat any pitch that includes the word "crypto" or "token" with high suspicion, because of the crap magnets those technologies have been historically. Too many people's "get rich quick" schemes sounded exactly like that a few years ago.
    • DyslexicAtheist 5y ago
      > It suggests that the people behind Signal may not be as trustworthy as they're made out to be. trust only works in retrospect (it can't be extended into the future to a party simply because they make a promise) all such relationships have an expiry date (since as the trusted party evolves or needs to reinvent itself to satisfy shareholders). what can prevent this are bullet-proof contracts (that's not how people make decisions though - they never read the fine-print, review it when it changes and instead work on gut-feeling and emotions). putting your trust into a brand/product is always going to eventually hurt you. A product having reached the size of Signal will most certainly throw part of it's user-base to the curb if it thinks it's held back by their opinions/goals. The disconnect is people thinking Signal owes them something (when everybody actually used it for free until now).
• 1vuio0pswjnm7 5y ago
  What about Wickr. (Assuming you and your friends are not seeking privacy from US government.) I think they have paying customers so unlikely to push ads or sell crypto.
  • ersiees 5y ago
    What a weird assumption.
• teekert 5y ago
  What?! How does anyone using Signal get any news about the "bitcoins"? None of my friends I converted even heard about it.
• lrvick 5y ago
  Or use something open and decentralized like Matrix that no one single party can control the future of.
• webinvest 5y ago
  You don’t need to use bitcoins to use signal for messaging.