Ask HN: Paid alternatives to WhatsApp
Do y'all know of a paid cross platform messaging service that respects user privacy in everyday, and not do creepy stuff?
"paid" because I'd like them to stay in business.
Too bad the masses don't get the privacy angle in free products. I feel like FB<->WhatsApp is counting on just that by using a unintuitive "opt-out" policy. The moms,dads, and not so tech aware citizens won't even know what goes on underneath. They would be feeling falsely proud to use a 'secure','E-E encrypted' service not knowing 'privacy' is different from them.
I am using XMPP and it works as good as any other messaging app (fast end-2-end encryption included). And since it is an _federated_ protocol I am not bound to any provider.
There is just one major problem:
There seems to be a lack of client developers, because most clients are simply not up-to-date. I am using 'conversations' as an android client, which is quite good, but the desktop clients seem to lack any development momentum.