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Comment by FlyingSnake | Hacker News Reader

I think this is a strawman argument. Can't it be the users from group#3 who's sad to see Signal turn into WeChat? After all the lessons learned from Keybase are open for all to see.

WhatsApp doesn't include payment mechanism in many markets, why is Signal trying to waste developer resources on unwanted features?

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Yep, I'm a group 3 user who has been defending Signal on HN for years. I probably won't be leaving the platform since it took so much effort to get friends/family to use it. But this whole scenario is inexcusable.

We've seen the failure of Telegram's ICO. The rise of spam accounts with Keybase's Stellar "space drops". FB's failed attempts at digital currency.

But what irks me the most is that the Github repo for their server was outdated for an entire year. They pushed up their commits around the time of this press release, likely to keep the integration of this cryptocoin a secret.

https://web.archive.org/web/20210117230947/https://github.co...

Edit: Yep, went through the commit history, and the very next commit on April 22nd, 2020 is when Signal first began working on crypto payments.

https://github.com/signalapp/Signal-Server/commit/95f0ce1816...

In other words, they new it was a bad idea that would draw backlash, but they did it anyway

WhatsApp payments isn't available yet in all markets, but you can be sure it's coming.

WhatsApps payment feature is only available in India where they implemented the feature in alignment with the Indian UPI initiative.

Src.: https://faq.whatsapp.com/general/payments/learn-more-about-p...

Therefore I'd argue that this specific feature can hardly be seen as waiting for a global rollout.

Payments was also launched in Brasil, and Facebook are on record as saying they want to expand it to more countries.

> you can be sure it's coming.

It's standing on the shoulders of UPI in India. Do they also plan to bring India's UPI to rest of the world?

I offer that if you think e2e encrypted messaging plus a simple cryptocurrency payment system is "turn[ing] into WeChat" that perhaps you are making a massive overgeneralization, or perhaps are unfamiliar with the scope and extent of WeChat.

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