I know not everyone is willing to do this, but I just made myself unreachable elsewhere and many started using signal for that reason.

Don't have an answer but sharing in your pain as a millennial. 😭

A few years ago I got 5 of my millennial friends to move from FB Messenger to Telegram and it took some peer pressure from me and essentially one hangout where we were all together, and moved in one go. Telegram is not perfect but overall it's much better than being on FB messenger.

I deleted Facebook and Instagram and joined Signal. Not everybody transitioned (instead they wanted me to join WhatsUp lol), but it was a good decision in the long run.

Of course not everybody will transition as well, but let me tell you those who did (in my case) are those who want to be really in contact with you. For the rest I use SMS and E-mail like in the old days haha. You just have to hope that eventually they will join.

It's really hard decision that you have to think about (it took me some time) but I just say "F*** that" and just did it. Until I remove my Fb and Ig they think that I wasn't going to do it but well ^^.

I tried convincing my group chats and various friends i messaged on facebook quite a bit to download signal with zero success. About a year later i nuked all my social media and told em to text me.
The important people all moved over to signal eventually after that.
Its kind of a sucky way to do it but it worked for me

I just told everyone "I am only using Signal from now on. If you want to message me do it through that." Worked for those who actually want to keep in touch.

Set up matrix instance and invite them. Better to use something you control over signal which is run by a company on their servers. Saves you the trouble of having to do this all again down the line if something happens with signal. Also there are many chat bridges for stuff like signal, IG, WhatsApp, etc. Theres even an Imessage one but it is not in the ansible playbook yet.

https://github.com/spantaleev/matrix-docker-ansible-deploy makes it very simple to deploy.

The real chads get their friends to use Session. Better than Signal imo

You may want to give this a quick read before using signal

https://dessalines.github.io/essays/why_not_signal.html

I personally haven't verified the claims on there but I've been using a personal instance of Matrix for a while now and it's been working great.

finding a privacy conscious person that you also can get along with in the US as Gen Z is practically impossible.

I'm not sure what answer you're expecting. There isn't one. You can't make people give a shit about privacy. You can change your standards, you can make exceptions to your privacy rules for friends (defeating the purpose), or you can accept that most people don't care and think it's weird that you do. Nobody said the private life was one bursting with social activity.

As a gen z I find this to be basically impossible unless the platform is already in flux. I'm sure Instagram will do something people hate soon enough so just be ready when it goes down.

Tell them you've got some hot gossip that you're too scared to share without encryption. Make it spicy.

by force if necessary

I hope one day, that we have a viable protocol like email that will free everybody from vendor lock-in into messaging apps. Allowing us to chose our platform freely.

Unfortunately, I don’t think Matrix is there yet

You could use matrix and use bridges. Then they can migrate whenever they want.

• https://github.com/mautrix/signal
• https://github.com/mautrix/instagram

For real, just my closest friends have gotten signal, and techies, and privacy focused family. Slow up hill battle tbh.

My next trick is more family on the wagon, by convincing them to do more video calls through signal. They want to use Duo, but we are getting closer to more family with Signal than Duo.

Something that also helps, shame them for watching ads, there is no reason you have to watch ads unless you are using the shitty apps that force it on you. You separate them from ads though and you get less push back on new apps. Them ads really do be working on people.

Start with your family. A small group of friends. The 1-5 people you communicate with the most. Though, to be completely honest - iMessage is still a far cry better than instagram messages and SMS.

Just assume that everyone involved lives a life of multiple identities and they aren't ready to share their secret Signal identity with you yet.

I'm being sarcastic, but that actually isn't that far off from how things tend to actually work, it's just a matter of whether someone is conscious of how much their online behavior is performative.

I tried to get them on Matrix/element first. Couldn't do it, but then Signal looked easy enough and sticked. Might give another try if I can get my own Matrix server at home.

just install it on their phone without them knowing and tell them that is a new apple app