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"For instance, if someone messages you with an invitation, you might want to write back with a message that says "I'm excited." With integrated GIF search, you could instead do a GIF search for "I'm excited" and send one of the results instead."

What? Why? Is it some kind of attempt to become a new "cool" app? Sounds totally useless function to me, but if it helps to get more users, well, maybe that's a good thing.

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Why? Because lots of people like sending gifs and prefer to use messaging apps that support them. If it's totally useless to you then fine: don't use it.

It clutters the UI with unecessary stuff. Wire also provides such a misfeature. I would rather disable it, but cannot.

You have to specifically click a button to use it. That's a good compromise between jumping through hoops to enable it if opt-in.

In Signal is hidden under the post button, you can easily ignore it. In Wire it's on a toolbar and clutters the UI.

I think it would be acceptable if these types of things were on by default, and have the option to disable it or opt-out.

Yeah perhaps, but that would complicate the app development quite a bit. I'd rather see company invest developer time in other ways - maybe bringing desktop client support.

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