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Comment by dkhenry | Hacker News Reader

What gets me about the entire Google messaging ecosystem is how they manage to be so bad. My messaging system of choice is Signal, and it looks to be about three or four full time people that work on that. It manages to handle SMS, Grop Chat, Video Chat, and End to End encrypted chat for me. I imagine there are more Vice Presidents assigned to Allo then there are employees at Signal, and signal manages to out compete them.

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Signal and Allo actually have a similar number of installs, they're both in the 10-50m installs bucket in the Play store.

I use Signal, but it's fine at best, but it's not really going to break out of it's niche.

That doesn’t count all of the iOS people that also use Signal. I use Signal and Apple Messages and didn’t even know Allo existed. I have a perhaps irrational fear of using messaging from Google or Facebook because they have lost my trust.

Why would anyone invest in a Google messaging system when Google is prone to kill it off randomly?

Why do people ever switch chat apps? Besides shutdowns, it's because the new app does something the old one doesn't. Signal's pitch was easy encrypted messaging, but now there are apps that fill that slot, even Facebook Messenger has e2e encrypted chat, so there's not a lot of reason for Google to invest there.

Google Duo has succeeded as an app known for making video calls, which is as much a marketing/positioning achievement as it is a technical one.

There are lots of people declaring they will use a Google product in this thread, but of course no one is going to use a nonexistent product that people imagine as a clone of what already exists. Unless Google finds an "in", they're not going to get anywhere, even with whatever perfect app HN imagines.

> Why would anyone invest in a Google messaging system when Google is prone to kill it off randomly?

This is definitely where I'm at. I presume this is all about internal warring fiefdoms, because from the outside it makes no sense.

I have it plugged into SMS so for me it also works for people who haven't upgraded from SMS yet

It's not really fair to compare installs when Signal doesn't have the free marketing that comes with being a product created and pushed by Google.

I can't deal with how signal desktop works. I DO NOT want messaging tied to my phone. I want it tied to an account that works wherever I sign in. I'd love to use Signal, but can't deal with that.

Sounds like what you are looking for is Wire (wire.com).

Desktop/mobile clients. No need for phone to login.

Oh, and server code written in Haskell :)

You want XMPP or Matrix.

Or, realistically, Discord. I love open protocols but I do want a certain level of polish in the products I use.

What I love about Signal is their philosophy of "if it's not user friendly, nobody will use it, therefore it won't help anybody."

It's kind of like how Apple will combine security updates with stuff like new emojis: to increase the incentive for the general populus to update.

I sometimes compare Signal to iMessage, except it's cross-platform and private.

signal on desktop it's next to useless and good luck sharing pictures through signal, which it's basic functionality they haven't fixed for years, who is fine with sharing pictures one by one? what is this 90s?

and PulseSMS is run by a single person, and it's excellent.

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