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Comment by MonkeyMalarky | Hacker News Reader

That's cool but everyone in my family that I convinced to use Signal just stopped using it because it was their default SMS app. Now it's not.

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This is the boat I'm in. My version of Signal already updated and encouraged me to switch SMS out of the app, which I did. Now I'm sort of split between these two apps; my family is, for the moment, still using Signal for both, but I expect they'll soon enough be forced to use Android Messages, at which point we'll have little reason to continue using Signal.

Once my immediate family is out, I expect it'll be a domino effect with my extended family and friends -- those of us on Signal will have fewer and fewer reasons (ie, individuals in our graph) to use it. As much as I'd like this to not be the case, I think it will be. A smallish percentage of my contact list was on Signal, but every few months, another few people would join. I expect this trend will reverse.

They stop using it because they can’t sms? Why is that… no connection to wifi?

the US is, to put it mildly, weird

my guess is that carriers/telcos offer unlimited SMS because they can data mine and monetize the shit out of it

also most people are still somewhere at the level of "the Internet is Google Chrome"

Other than the privacy features, that was my #1 selling point when trying to convince someone to install Signal - that you won't need two apps for your SMS since it will become your default app and the UI is better anyway.

Will be a lot harder to tell people to switch now.

I can accept that it is a real argument, since so many people mention it. But I just don't get it.

People have multiple apps for their social networks, and are completely fine with them. Snapchat, Facebook, TikTok, WhatsApp, Telegram. At the end of the day, I think it's just an excuse. They don't want to install Signal because they follow what others do, and it seems like others are not on Signal.

Instead of saying: "Install Signal, it will be your new SMS app", if you said "What? You don't have Signal? That's the new thing man", I'm sure they would try it. Then realize that they don't have contacts there, and uninstall it (because they reaaaaaallly need to save those 6MB badly on their phone, for some reason).

People don't use what's best, people use what other people use. They don't want to think.

Who uses SMS? I am always surprised when this feature is being mentioned.

Canadians, people in their 30s and beyond, people who aren't on Facebook, random people not in your friend group, businesses. But most of all, the people who keep complaining about SMS support! What you're saying is a bit nonsensical "if I ignore everyone in this group, the group has no one in it".

I use SMS from time to time too - especially random people that call me, but I don't see much added value of having it unified in Signal. I just use the default SMS app on my phone (iMessage app in my case, which also works for SMS). For me Signal is about E2E encrypted messages with more features, SMS is a different much more limited platform.

Discovery. If you and another were texting each other via SMS, but signal was your app, signal would just upgrade your sms to a signal msg. You didn't have to have a conversation ahead of time, or save them in your contacts and let signal scan them - it just worked.

Discovering you're not limited to sms was nice, when now you have to have an aside - "hey, have you ever heard of signal?"

Signal on Android previously worked a lot like iMessage on iOS - you'd use it as your default messenger, it'd SMS if that was the lowest common denominator, or it'd seamlessly upgrade to Signal protocol if both sides had it.

My SMS use:

1) Spam (~40%)

2) Transactional messages (~40%)

3) Conversations with old (45+) relatives (~15%)

4) Conversations with people I barely know (parents of kids' friends, people responding to a web market listing, that kind of thing) (~5%)

Yeah, but why do you need Signal to handle those messages?

Lots of people like having just one messaging app, for messaging that's basically SMS-like. Apple and Google have both chased that dream for their SMS apps, for a good reason (Apple with more success than Google—does Google still have another messaging service attached to their SMS app, or did they give up on that when the first attempt was a disaster about a decade ago?)

> does Google still have another messaging service attached to their SMS app

Google Messages (the default SMS app on newer phones) uses RCS if available and overlays E2E encryption on top using the Signal protocol.

Still they have many. Really how many people exclusively use SMS on their phone?

You don't! But that's exactly the problem - you don't need signal at all. All the important messages that you get are gonna come through another platform (SMS, whatsapp, weechat, etc [depending on where you are]). So, now that SMS support is gone, all signal installs are in addition to the apps that you actually need.

Most people will use the messaging platforms that they need to have installed to get through their days. It's nice, ofc, to have friends who are privacy enthusiasts - but Signal main goal has always been to go beyond that group.

People with an Android phone that talk to people with iPhones where one of those parties doesn't use Signal. That's who.

Android users apparently.

everyone receiving packages, visiting doctor, receiving 2FA codes, etc. - TLDR basically every adult person not living on street

but you are right it doesn't have much use for children

Americans basically.

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