Refusing to use Signal: "I have too many messaging apps"

Not sure if any of you have encountered the same resistance to using Signal. Some of my cousins refused to use Signal because they are already using “too many chat apps” (e.g. WhatsApp, Facebook Messenger, WeChat, Telegram, Line, Snapchat, etc.). To them, Signal will just be another chat app among their numerous other chat apps. I understand that jumping between so many messaging apps imposes some kind of cognitive and maintenance burden. What are some ways to convince such people to use Signal?

BananaTrifleViolin,

Signal made a foolish decision to remove SMS support from their app. It was a good way to get people in to use the app and build the user base - it's easier to say to people "try signal, it also replaces your text messaging app" than to say "try this other messenger in addition to your texting app and whatsapp and etc..."

When they made the decision it was also announced on a pompous and self congratulatory way in my opinion. They posted a long post talking about being more secure rather than recognising that they were inconveniencing their users by removing a feature. Users can't decide how someone is going to send them a message but they can be advocates for adopting signal when they receive an SMS from someone.

There seems to be a lack of awareness in the Signal team of the strategic benefit of supporting SMS, when you're competing with other convenient but not as secure popular systems like WhatsApp you need a unique selling point. An all-in-one approach was a good trojan horse way of getting signals secure comms into people's lives.

While I believe in Signal I find myself defaulting to WhatsApp and my SMS messenger. Even people I know who do have signal, and who I conversed with previously are preferring to contact me via WhatsApp now. Signal is the more secure and independent option but it's convenience that really drives adoption for a lot of users.

Zo0,

That was such a stupid decision, I deleted Signal after that

animist,

It was not foolish. It was a security decision and the right one. The goal of signal isn’t to have billions of users, the goal is to become a privacy and security centered app. If a feature prevents that it should be immediately removed.

Vinegar,
Vinegar avatar

Minor UI tweaks would have been sufficient, like dark patterns to encourage sending secure messages to other signal users by default. Instead, they removed a stand-out feature that made new-user adoption so much easier than other apps. Now, they're just one of many secure messaging apps, and they're not the best one in any way.

I recently switched back to android, i was excited to use signal as my SMS client and then encourage my friends to use it as well. Now there's no reason to choose Signal at all.

They can pat themselves on the back all they want, but im convinced they made the change for the same reason causing so much enshitification of the internet these days: they want to lock-in their users.

animist,

How is it locking in if it is obvious they did something that 1) many people don’t like and thus left signal for and 2) as you pointed out, they have many identical competitors? That’s not convincing at all given the other parts of your argument.

KLISHDFSDF,
@KLISHDFSDF@lemmy.ml avatar

many people don’t like and thus left signal for

Is there any evidence of this? Because if anything, anecdotally, I’ve seen an increase in my circles and I’ve stopped trying to get people over after I convinced my small circle to hop on.

lps2,

Anecdotal here : all my friends but one group chat dropped signal all together

Vinegar,
Vinegar avatar

If your contacts use Signal, and you don't want to use signal anymore, you'll need to convince your contacts to switch to another messenger now. You used to be able to stop using signal if you wanted without inconveniencing your friends, now you're locked in.

Dienervent,

So why do they only allow users to signup to Signal with a phone number? If they really were about privacy and security, they should allow signups via username+password only.

There so much money to be made for just knowing who is talking to who. Who is using the app and when. Even if they can't get at the content of your messages.

I don't trust them one bit.

andrewm,

You confuse privacy and security with anonymity, they are different things. Also, with the sealed senders option, the sender are hidden.

Dienervent,

The person I'm talking to is allowed to know who I am so I'm not anonymous. Signal doesn't need to know who I am. It doesn't matter what you call it, that's the feature I'm waiting for to motivate a switch.

That said, I looked up sealed senders. They really do go above and beyond to end2end encrypt as much as they possibly can.

It's just a shame that they insist so hard to tie user accounts to phone numbers.

andrewm,

Signal doesn’t know who you are. A number don’t reveal your identity, and, usually, you should be just a gov. entities to discover that. Does matter what you call it: Signal is for privacy (they have your number, but they don’t know who you are, who you write and what you write), not for (full) anonymity (they don’t have any information, including number, on you).

Anyway, they’re implementing the username too.

KLISHDFSDF,
@KLISHDFSDF@lemmy.ml avatar

First, you’re conflating privacy with anonymity.

Secondly, they are one of the few orgs (maybe only?) that have been subpoenaed multiple times and they’ve published documented evidence [0] that even when compelled by law to present all the info they have on any specific user, all they know is:

  1. The date you created an account
  2. The last day (not time) one of your clients messaged their

Feel free to trust whoever you want, but the source code to Signal’s clients and server are open for anyone to criticize, and they have been. They’re not perfect, nobody is, but they’re also one of the few orgs out there showing that they’re willing to put up or shut up.

Criticize in a constructive manner. Don’t be dismissive and spread FUD by stating “I don’t trust them” without backing up understanding the Signal threat model and mixing up privacy & anonymity.

[0] signal.org/bigbrother/

NENathaniel,
@NENathaniel@lemmy.ca avatar

Anyone who I message regularly, I say “Telegram/Signal or expect long response times”

max,

I have encountered this too. I don’t force people to use Signal, but I also don’t use any other messenger, so if they want to contact me they will just have the use it and else the content is probably just not that important.

engineer,

Actually, it should be easier to convince these people. If they are already used to 2+ IM apps, then what’s the issue with adding one more? Ask them if you are important enough for one more app. 😀

Problem is for people who only have one app, and find it too bothersome (or confusing, for non-techie / old people) to use more than one app.

andruid,

Honestly wish a matrix client that made Facebook,discord,sms,signal, bridging existed. I also hate jumping between chats. People know signal is the way to a hold of me (it’s on my computer and phone!), Sms/calls are the next, and anything else is like throwing paper airplanes at my house.

mulcahey,

Beeper kinda does this. But I don’t trust anything with my Signal messages

wagoner,

Interesting that it’s Signal that is the final straw, and it wasn’t Whatsapp or Telegram or Snap or Facebook Messenger etc. This is a choice to draw the line here, and it’s likely because you’re the only one asking for it, when the others are already meeting the needs, because that’s where everyone already is.

settinmoon,
@settinmoon@lemmy.ml avatar

Yes, and I just keep bothering them until they cave in. I’m only interested in getting rid of the other appson my phone and I don’t really care if they still choose to use the other spyware apps (I haven’t made the full switch either). After all, protecting online privacy is an overall lifestyle and behavioural change, merely switching one platform does nothing. I’m definitely not going to try to convince people why protecting their own privacy is important as I value my time.

zwerdlds,

Use Beeper instead.

animist,

ITT: people subscribing to a community for a free app they no longer use so they can keep bashing it for removing the one feature that kept memaw using it

People are EXTREMELY entitled

Prootje,

There are few things as annoying as FOSS and privacy evangelicals. They keep insisting that non polished and terribly designed apps are somehow supreme to use as stuff that has proven to work long time ago. Why should people accommodate 1 dude who wants to use a special app. In the case of signal, if you dont use WhatsApp or other critical mass app, ill just send you a text messages through SMS if needed.

KLISHDFSDF,
@KLISHDFSDF@lemmy.ml avatar

That’s the option I give people and have converted many. I have Signal, it has more modern features than SMS, is basically Whatsapp, but run by a non-profit org. If you don’t care to install it, use SMS.

animist,

“This is the only one I use. If you need to reach me either do it on that or email me.” Worked for my family.

moonmeow,

Yup this is the only way. And kind of makes a point that one is truly enough, although nothing is wrong with a lil healthy competition.

wellnowletssee,

I am part of a group chat with very old friends who live far away and whom(?) I don’t see regularly at all. They all communicate regularly on WhatsApp and I don’t feel like having the „power“ to say what you suggest.

settinmoon,
@settinmoon@lemmy.ml avatar

I thought this was true a couple months ago. Until last month I all of a sudden found out fb messenger no longer allows you to sign out from the app. I’m not sure when the change happened but this pissed me off.

I then started DM folks one by one that I normally talk to to convince them to switch and kept bothering them until they caved in. Then I rebuilt the same groups on Signal. Now most of the folks I converse with on a regular basis all uses Signal group chats.

cambionn,

Yup, did the same but suggested SMS instead of email.

Never told them to stop using things like WhatsApp (that’s generally counter productive anyways), just that I did due to privacy reasons. Most where fine with SMS, it’s on everyone’s phone and nowadays so cheap most phones plans include it unlimited (it’s all about data bundles and speed here). A year later almost everyone is on Signal after all. Easier with group chats and sending pictures, or when someone is abroad. As as soon as they got some convinience from it they installed the app. A few I still SMS. Also fine.

As long as you’re not a jerk about it, my experience is that it’s not thát big of a deal.

EntropyPure,

I second this. I made an effort a while back to cut all Meta products out of my digital life. And this was the reasoning I gave to friends and family as well. Especially as I had no interest at all to use more than one messaging app.

Worked pretty well.

npmstart_pray,

Good for you. Now do Alphabet.

EntropyPure,

Did that years ago already! No Google Account and using other search engines.

Kecessa,

So because you have no interest in using more than one app you coerce others into installing yet another messaging app?

That says something about you and it’s not positive…

animist,

That’s obviously not what they’re saying. Stop being so negative towards strangers on the Internet.

Kecessa,

Stop forcing people to adapt to your choices?

EntropyPure,

Well, that surely is a two way street, ain’t it?

Others staying on WhatsApp, Facebook Messenger etc and expecting me to be available there is the same „forcing people to adapt to your choices“.

Everyone has their choice, they can adapt another messenger or not. No hard feelings either way. Regarding my data and privacy the choice is mine, and if I don’t want my data in the hands of Meta and Alphabet that is my call to make. No matter how others deem that decision.

settinmoon,
@settinmoon@lemmy.ml avatar

“Coercion involves compelling a party to act in an involuntary manner by the use of threats, including threats to use force against that party.”

Perhaps you should kindly explain why you think threats are involved in this case?

BlessedDog,
@BlessedDog@lemmy.ml avatar

I had a problem with this too, I just deleted my WhatsApp account so if people wanted to talk to me they had to download signal. Worked pretty well.

JavaTea,

That’s something I don’t really understand: the Signal app is a small app and installing it on your phone takes 30 seconds at most.

If it’s on om your phone it hardly takes any space and only if you get a message it’ll light up.

So what’s the difficulty…?

Yes I have it installed and active on my phone and computer, no - no one is using it… 😂

bh11235, (edited )

I don’t personally use Signal but I do use a bunch of other tools that the average user balks at (Linux as my daily driver, vim, Libreoffice, a god damned password manager, etc…). Call me defeatist but after years of experience evangelizing to people about these sorts of tools, I’ve written it off as a lost cause. Most users only care about one thing, “what actual problem that I have does this solve?” – I’m not even talking about the other uncomfortable conversation of “if I seriously use this what new problems will it create for me?”. The median user won’t budge on account of a promised solution to a problem that’s never bothered them and they’ve never thought of until you brought it up and insisted that it was totally a big deal.

When the normie alternative is literally on fire that’s when you get people willing to make changes. So, if you want to get a lot of people to use Signal, all you have to do is orchestrate a series of huge damaging scandals that people could totally imagine happening to them, and that were only possible because those involved were using more mainstream messaging apps. Short of that I have no idea.

MNLFNUT8YG,

There aren’t any. People keep using the app which all friends, family and coworkers use. Those people “have nothing to hide”. And quite frankly, I deleted Signal and Telegram also from my devices.

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