Why don't people talk about https://wire.com/? It's encrypted and mostly open source. It has the most features I've seen including multiple devices, group chat, audio, desktop app.
But it still looks like a centralized communication protocol that depends on proprietary servers and a private network to use. The issue with the walled gardens we're seeing (this week with this iconic photograph) is that there is no escape valve; no truly open alternative to the social network provided by these services.
With email we can (despite the difficulties) set up our own servers and clients, and communicate with anyone (again, assuming we manage to set up things correctly) who uses email today. We can even use encryption verified and trusted by many independent experts (i.e., OpenPGP). Despite all its warts, there is a safety valve there, and for now it maintains the balance between corporate and public interests.
With these chat services it seems that you are stuck with what their proprietors allow and assert.
Federation is hard to get right, but isn't it simply a base requirement for any truly free and open alternative to the WhatsApps and Snapchats of the world?
There are some creative applications that could be useful, like the models used in East Asia through micro payments. However their culture is conducive to the micropayment model (I.e. emojis, etc) whereas the West is not. A micro payment service on privatized data would be ideal if it could be profitable, yet there is no profitable model to sustain it in the West.
Edit: also, no matter what micro payment model you use, if it is successful or trends, the established free non privatized services will exploit it and provide it for free.
I can see this possibly working doing in enclaves outside the US surveillance apparatus, but directly competing against it by taking on their grandfathered companies is extremely difficult.
We don't need the masses to migrate now, it doesn't need to be either
- "everyone away from Facebook, Whatsapp, Google, everybody use only GPL and nothing for NSA, ФСБ etc to see"
or
- otherwise utter fail.
Getting people to try alternatives goes a long way. We have seen Microsoft changing massively over the last few years after Apple started eating away at the high end prosumer market for phones and laptops.
Facebook just caved after one head of a nation and a couple of newspapers, one of them in a tiny tiny country, stood up and said NO.
I, and many with me, also think the majority of the police force in most western countries is good hardworking people, (I'm personally in no position to judge eastern or African countries and even my opinion on western police is to be taken with a grain of salt) what we object to is just the warrantless dragnets etc.
And the reason why we are objecing them often isn't necessarily because we distrust our police, but as an insurance against future police and politicians, against future hackers who might get access to a raw dump, against unstable neighbouring countries and the occasional bad apple we see. Oh, and as a matter of solidarity to people like the Turkish who now seems to have reason for worry if they ever said or did anything that might have offended their (somewhat easily offended it seems) president:-|
(BTW: If you have spare time and/or cash consider supporting EFF. They seem to be very focused and reasonable to the point where they are taken seriously by politicians.)
The idea of private data atolls in the day of free services is a luxury and they are exploiting that facet. Cloud services like Gcloud, AWS, etc reflect this from their premium pricing.