The announcement of dropping SMS at the time gave those vibes. They were basically saying to users “we know what’s good for ypu better than you do”.
It was a huge strategic misstep. SMS was the perfect route to get people to use Signal - you’d start with SMS conversations and then as people joined signal conversations could switch to secure chat. Now its very hard to persuade people to switch to Signal.
Now google has used the same trick to push its own messaging standard RCS.
Yeah and when people were like “hey, this decision sucks, can you not?” They were like “where was this feedback before, we’ve been discussing this on our forums for months” and its like… Obviously most people who use your app aren’t on your forums. The usage patterns of people with that much dedication to signal will be different from people who are just using the app to talk to their friends and family and treat it as a tool.
I think you’re absolutely right.
The announcement of dropping SMS at the time gave those vibes. They were basically saying to users “we know what’s good for ypu better than you do”.
It was a huge strategic misstep. SMS was the perfect route to get people to use Signal - you’d start with SMS conversations and then as people joined signal conversations could switch to secure chat. Now its very hard to persuade people to switch to Signal.
Now google has used the same trick to push its own messaging standard RCS.
Yeah and when people were like “hey, this decision sucks, can you not?” They were like “where was this feedback before, we’ve been discussing this on our forums for months” and its like… Obviously most people who use your app aren’t on your forums. The usage patterns of people with that much dedication to signal will be different from people who are just using the app to talk to their friends and family and treat it as a tool.