Refusing to use Signal: "I have too many messaging apps"
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?
It was a lot easier to convince people (and myself) to use signal when it also did SMS. When that feature was removed it certainly felt like another app to worry about.
36The loss of SMS really diminished Signal's attractiveness as a messaging app. I still use it because moving the few that I have convinced to employ it as a vector for communication to something more obscure would be even more tiresome.
20Yep. Once SMS was gone then all my contacts left and I had no reason to keep it. I unfortunately had to install WhatsApp as that was where the critical mass was.
6
"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.
35I 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.
10Yup, 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.
4I 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.
3I 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.
5
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.
1
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.
19It 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.
12Minor 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.
12So 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.
5
That was such a stupid decision, I deleted Signal after that
1
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.
9There 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.
9Permanently Deleted
4That'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.... 😂
4Honestly 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.
4Beeper kinda does this. But I don't trust anything with my Signal messages
2
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.
4Use Beeper instead.
2I 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.
2I experienced it too, but I just refuse to use anything else and I‘d rather not write to anyone than use WhatsApp. Thus I lost contact with some people, but it‘s alright, people went with only a few close contacts for most of human history, so I‘m not missing it.
I also still have Email and SMS and calls, so it‘s not like there is no way to reach me if people wanted to.
2`"These people are too stubborn to use the app I use to communicate with me."
Proceeds to not install the app they use and thus lose contact with those people.`
Oh the irony
Edit: I just noticed your username and... Yeah!
3
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.
1Anyone who I message regularly, I say "Telegram/Signal or expect long response times"
1Yes, 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.
1ITT: 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
-1There 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.
-2That'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.
1