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Signal and Threema want nothing to do with WhatsApp (www.androidpolice.com)

submitted 4 months ago by [email protected] to c/technology

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[–] BananaTrifleViolin 24 points 4 months ago (1 children)

Signal were fools to remove the SMS support from their app. That was a good way to get people in to use the system - they could have insecure SMS chats with those not on signal, and secure signal chats with those on it. The app would warn you when someone didn't have signal and the chat was insecure.

It was a really good "trojan horse" route into people's lives. I was using signal every day and it was easier encouraging others to make the switch because it was a convenient app.

Then the devs removed that and dumped all their users back onto other SMS apps.

Now I have 3 apps - an SMS app, Signal and WhatsApp. I barely ever use Signal now. I want to use it more but so few people I know use it, and it's not the first place people message me from.

Removing SMS support was a huge strategic misstep. They should have been the bridge for people to move from SMS to secure chat.

[–] mightyfoolish 9 points 4 months ago (2 children)

While I do think you are correct, you have to remember a few things:

SMS really isn't used outside the US (and iMessage pretty much was the death of text messages and now iMessage also supports RCS)
Open source projects can be strict about following a moral code
Anything more than just sending secure messages is just an attack vector and more layers of code to maintain

[–] [email protected] 4 points 4 months ago* (last edited 4 months ago) (1 children)

Idk about other countries. But in India, SMS is pretty big for businesses to send updates to the customers. Like 2FA for bank transactions, delivery tracking, govt alerts etc. Customer to customer is almost nil except on rare occasions when maybe the internet is down and you need to send an urgent text.

And I should mention that domestic SMS is free (included with any active cellular plan)

[–] mightyfoolish 1 points 4 months ago

Very good point. I did forget about that. That's pretty much the only time most of my family will look at actual SMS messages.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 4 months ago (2 children)

A bit offtopic, but, are SMS free on the US?

Indeed, in my country SMS are not used at all. Too expensive compared to alternatives.

[–] FMT99 2 points 4 months ago

Here I pay 1 euro per month extra for unlimited calls+SMS. Still no one uses it.

[–] mightyfoolish 1 points 4 months ago

Most plans include unlimited text messaging.