this post was submitted on 10 Oct 2023
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Unfortunately, in doing so, Signal became Yet Another Messaging App. It really damaged their value proposition in my eyes.
If I need a separate app for SMS, WhatsApp, Messenger, Telegram, Signal, etc, it just becomes a chore to find enough friends willing to move to it exclusively.
The IM ecosystem really needs to be harmonized on the user end. I remember Trillian was this great app back in the day that brokered all your MSM, Google Chat, etc IM accounts into a single app that let you just focus on messaging people and not worrying about what platform was being used. We badly need this again.
Matrix can kinda emulate this kind of "all messages in one app" experience with bridges but you introduce a single server who decrypts all your end to end encryption so you pretty much have to self host. Also the bridges arent perfect so your msgs will sometimes look weird or not support some features.
A shared frontend would be a little more convenient, but is having multiple apps that big a deal? I think I have eight right now.
Android's default Contacts app has buttons for each option a given contact has so there's not even much cognitive load to pick the app you need if you start from there.
I don't have people saved in Contacts, they are only saved in my apps directly
Most chat apps will sync with Contacts if you allow them to. If you don't do that, then you have to remember which app you want for each person, which becomes inconvenient if you have a lot of contacts who use different apps.