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> I failed at convincing my friends and family to move to Signal, Telegram or Discord. Mostly to others reading this, but please don't spend effort trying to m

> I failed at convincing my friends and family to move to Signal, Telegram or Discord. Mostly to others reading this, but please don't spend effort trying to move people to other walled gardens. This just guarantees you need to do it again and multiplies the effort required to get people to move to a protocol instead.

djbusby 4y ago
Which protocol should I push my FFF group to?
- torgoguys 4y ago
  SMS?
  - TheBozzCL 4y ago
    That really doesn’t work when phone carriers give everyone free WhatsApp traffic. Which is why it’s so popular in my country, other than inertia.
    - Schroedingersat 4y ago
      There's free as in beer, free as in speech, and free as in "candy" scrawled on the side of a panel van. If you use something because someone is paying to shove it down your throat, you will pay a thousand fold once they win their monopoly.
- themoonisachees 4y ago
  Matrix is great and has bridge support for all 4 chat services mentioned.
  - manfre 4y ago
    Most people will not host their own. They'd still be in someone else's garden.
    - Schroedingersat 4y ago
      Just don't sign up to any of the biggest three once the protocol reaches mass adoption, and that's not a problem because you can always leave without losing the ability to communicate if someone does something shady, and your private data is private. Additionally having a long tail with 30-70% of the users makes it impossible to buy. And you probably don't even have to go that far, just not using element is probably enough to prevent matrix from trying it even if they wanted to (which it's clear they don't because they make it easy to leave). We don't have to 'leave email' or 'leave tcp/ip' every few years because the TOS requires handing over your firstborn or because http is running experiments to see how many people will commit suicide. The idea is borderline-incoherent.
RDaneel0livaw 4y ago
To others reading this: Please do spend as much effort as humanly possible to move people away to ANYTHING other than whatsapp. Signal is great, but anything other than a property owned and operated by facebook will help weaken them, which is better for the entire earth.
- Schroedingersat 4y ago
  Moving to another walled guarden just gives them something else to acquire and signal is not immune to this. Xmpp, matrix, and sms are options.
- crossroadsguy 4y ago
  Both Signal and WhatsApp are walled gardens and having watched overlords who control these apps I might consider Zuck & Co to be more flexible if I must pick one. A lot of those people had actually installed Signal. I had convinced them. When things broke, features were missing I just couldn’t tell them what to do. Never again. But in the process of trying to bring them to Signal, I actually understood why my friends and family (many of them are from remote villages; educated or barely educated) prefer WhatsApp — because they “can actually use” WhatsApp and connect to others unlike anything else! You know how big that is? That trumps everything Sugnal has to offer and it doesn’t offer much to begin with. Element/Vector/Riot/or whatever they’ll name it next isn’t even in that league and it’s good it is not even trying to be an usable person to person individual chat app/service. Though I wish they used Telegram (yeah yeah, E2E is opt-in). It’s just too superior an app! Too good. But they don’t. So WhatsApp it is.
  - Schroedingersat 4y ago
    I'm all aboard the moxie has some incredibly bad rationalizations every time signal adds another sketchy feature train, but what makes you say facebook is better? Also element works just fine, especially compared to the massive issues facebook messenger has had over the years.

djbusby 4y ago

Which protocol should I push my FFF group to?

torgoguys 4y ago
SMS?
- TheBozzCL 4y ago
  That really doesn’t work when phone carriers give everyone free WhatsApp traffic. Which is why it’s so popular in my country, other than inertia.
  - Schroedingersat 4y ago
    There's free as in beer, free as in speech, and free as in "candy" scrawled on the side of a panel van. If you use something because someone is paying to shove it down your throat, you will pay a thousand fold once they win their monopoly.
themoonisachees 4y ago
Matrix is great and has bridge support for all 4 chat services mentioned.
- manfre 4y ago
  Most people will not host their own. They'd still be in someone else's garden.
  - Schroedingersat 4y ago
    Just don't sign up to any of the biggest three once the protocol reaches mass adoption, and that's not a problem because you can always leave without losing the ability to communicate if someone does something shady, and your private data is private. Additionally having a long tail with 30-70% of the users makes it impossible to buy. And you probably don't even have to go that far, just not using element is probably enough to prevent matrix from trying it even if they wanted to (which it's clear they don't because they make it easy to leave). We don't have to 'leave email' or 'leave tcp/ip' every few years because the TOS requires handing over your firstborn or because http is running experiments to see how many people will commit suicide. The idea is borderline-incoherent.

RDaneel0livaw 4y ago

To others reading this: Please do spend as much effort as humanly possible to move people away to ANYTHING other than whatsapp. Signal is great, but anything other than a property owned and operated by facebook will help weaken them, which is better for the entire earth.

Schroedingersat 4y ago
Moving to another walled guarden just gives them something else to acquire and signal is not immune to this. Xmpp, matrix, and sms are options.
crossroadsguy 4y ago
Both Signal and WhatsApp are walled gardens and having watched overlords who control these apps I might consider Zuck & Co to be more flexible if I must pick one. A lot of those people had actually installed Signal. I had convinced them. When things broke, features were missing I just couldn’t tell them what to do. Never again. But in the process of trying to bring them to Signal, I actually understood why my friends and family (many of them are from remote villages; educated or barely educated) prefer WhatsApp — because they “can actually use” WhatsApp and connect to others unlike anything else! You know how big that is? That trumps everything Sugnal has to offer and it doesn’t offer much to begin with. Element/Vector/Riot/or whatever they’ll name it next isn’t even in that league and it’s good it is not even trying to be an usable person to person individual chat app/service. Though I wish they used Telegram (yeah yeah, E2E is opt-in). It’s just too superior an app! Too good. But they don’t. So WhatsApp it is.
- Schroedingersat 4y ago
  I'm all aboard the moxie has some incredibly bad rationalizations every time signal adds another sketchy feature train, but what makes you say facebook is better? Also element works just fine, especially compared to the massive issues facebook messenger has had over the years.