I can’t use them because I can’t convince anybody to switch with me. I talk to most people on discord and I’d rather move to using Matrix, but I can’t convince any of my friends or family or anyone I know to use anything else.
I bought everyone in my family a drink to get them to use Signal. Worked great and we’re still on it.
Don’t bother trying to sell people on privacy etc, for the most part. Show them Giphy integration, stickers, Stories, etc and show them that it’s fun. Signal has done great work there, in making it “noob-friendly”
Seems like a lot of people want that too, so hopefully they’ll add it soon
I just told everybody that I only reply on Threema and don’t use anything else.
My thought process was - if they can’t be arsed to use another app (which is an extremely effortless task to do) then they are probably not worth staying in contact with.
The 3 people that were most important in my life at that point got the app immediately.
After over a decade with threema I now have over 40 contacts there, mostly friends, some colleagues, multiple hobby centric groups etc.
I guess just start and don’t compromise and be patient
This is pretty much exactly what I did. I said I will be using signal, and if you want to stay in contact with me, that’s how you will do it, because I will not reply to anything else.
I just told everybody that I only reply on Threema
if they can’t be arsed to use another app (which is an extremely effortless task to do) then they are probably not worth staying in contact with
So if someone said you have to use their messagee of choice - Signal, Whatsapp, Matrix, FB Messager, Discord - you’d have no problem meeting them there because it’s effortless, yeah?
You left out two important real world aspects from your thought experiment.
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one person cares about a specific aspect of the messenger - privacy - and the other doesn’t care, they are just on whatever their peers told them to be on. So if their messenger happens to have the aspect I care about I’ll do it. Since they don’t have any such criteria I expect them to do it as well.
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If that person is important enough for me and doesn’t budge I’ll call or E-Mail them. Which is less private than an e2ee messenger, but more private than data harvesting companies.
Become unavailable on non-private messengers. Explain your reasons if asked, but stay stubborn. (And yes, it will turn out that a subset of people you know don’t give a shit about staying in contact with you.)
Don’t cut them off. Don’t cut off your influence. Delay your replies and show why. https://lemmy.world/post/21620691
I’m running several opensource alternatives for clients (rocketchat, prosody, matrix) and I’ve transitioned privately from telegram and XMPP to matrix. the pushback from users is immense, they find every possible reason and excuse to stick with the messengers they’re used to and use “the new stuff” for the bare minimum.
privately it’s easy easier, that’s the only way you can get ahold of me, so if you need/want me, that’s where I am at. for a short while tried to make it work with signal, but a) the phone number thing is a deal breaker (usernames get me only halfway there) and b) I switch and use multiple devices often and that thing is downright hostile towards people who own/use > 2 devices.
bear in mind, I’m in a dictatorial position. they have to do what I say and even with that, it’s an uphill battle. it doesn’t help that the stuff they’re now forced to use has subpar to downright dogshit UX.
the new, shiny, superawesome, superfast element x… is crap. I thought Signal was crap - this is another level. I don’t mean for me, it’s crap from the point of casual users, they are coming from the super polished world of telegram and imessage and twitter and friends and everything about this is off-putting. a lot of them need help setting this up, especially if it’s a multi-device scenario.
the immediate future looks bleak and I don’t see an important development on the horizon that would change any of this. but, that’s how telegram spread, early adopters switching to it and promoting it and dragging normies along. let’s hope for a repeat.
We use it at work, or rather I use it to text people at work I like.
Working with info sec people helps. But I explained it and had them read about it and we all got on board.
All you really can do is explain that text (sms) isn’t secure and that Signal is. And let people know you want to use it. But yes I wouldn’t try and force it that generally just annoys people.
