Apparently, Signal is not interested in it: https://www.androidpolice.com/signal-threema-nothing-to-do-with-whatsapp-eu/
this post was submitted on 01 Jan 2025
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Signal owners' position is that due to the way protocol works, hosting takes a lot of resources as compared to other IMs. Say, in group chats the same message encrypted differently is stored for every session of every user in that group. So if they made some integration, that would mean a lot of resources spent on people who don't even use Signal itself, and the need to support that integration.
Would love to be able to ditch WhtsApp but still be able to be in group chats via other apps.
Heres a question. I may have missed something but why is WhatsApp so popular? Ive seen people on the dumb phone threads talk about how not having it is a no go?
Heres a question. I may have missed something but why is WhatsApp so popular?
It's quite simple, they were the first messaging service to take hold back when sending text messages was still quite expensive.
Unlike America, Europe did not really have unlimited text messaging plans, so when data plans became a thing people switched to alternatives, and Whatsapp was one of the early services that offered that. And then later they got bought by Facebook / Meta.
Now everyone uses it, so they benefit from a network effect. You use it because everyone you know uses it.
Edit: typo
Same thing in Brazil/South America. SMS was hugely expensive and lacked features. Whatsapp showed up around the time cellphone plans were all starting to sell "X gb" of internet data and became the standard for lack of competition. Nowadays it's so ubiquitous that we get free Whatsapp in all data plans, as not offering that would literally make your plan worthless.
Interesting! Didn't know any of that.
Months ago I saw screenshots, allegedly for a WA prototype, that showed what could basically described as a plugin system for Whatsapp. So there wouldn't be interoperability with the WA protocol but WA users could install plugins for other messengers like Signal, WeChat, Line, etc.
I don't know what happened of that. When I saw the screenshots, I had a hard time believing that this would satisfy the EU because it was pretty much the wrong way around. Maybe they reversed course because someone from the EU told them "nice try but no". Going purely from gut feeling, I'd say they could add RCS support, so that users without WA could be added to WA group chats as well as be contacted from WA, similar to for iMessage does it. Another path could be that they add interoperability with Signal because that is what WA is using for encryption anyway and other competitors are then directed to Signal implement their messaging service. Again: This is speculation on my part.