I justo use that for sharing memes with whoever sees it.
I think it’s a silly feature for a messaging app, but it has no impact on me if I ignore the feature.
AppearanceBoring9229@sh.itjust.works 4 days ago
I think it’s a silly feature for a messaging app, but it has no impact on me if I ignore the feature.
I justo use that for sharing memes with whoever sees it.
solrize@lemmy.ml 4 days ago
It does say something about the mindset of the vendor, which is a legit reason to decide not to use an app. From what I can tell, Teslas are pretty good cars despite some issues here and there. But Elon’s antics are enough to make me decide not to buy one.
Zak@lemmy.world 4 days ago
I’m not sure adding a questionable social feature to a messaging app is reasonably comparable to the very long list of insane and/or evil shit Musk has done.
Like any messaging system, Signal’s utility is proportional to its userbase. If stories get more people to use it without making it worse for people who don’t care, then they’re a good idea even if I think everything else about the concept is bad.
solrize@lemmy.ml 4 days ago
A bar (place where you drink) is another type of a messaging system. Yu can meet people in them and have conversations there. That doesn’t mean it’s best to crowd everyone into one giant bar claiming that increases utility, compared with letting people freely open their own bars. Especially if the avowed purpose of the bar is enabling private conversations (facilitating giving you and your friend Bob a private place to talk, as opposed to creating a meeting place for strangers).
I can understand visiting a giant bar if I want to mingle with randos in public. If I want to talk privately with my friend, I want a small, private bar, preferably one whose existence is not known to anyone outside of my friend group. If the giant bar operator is going out of his way to prevent me from doing that, I have to say he is up to something not so good.
Sorry about the strained analogy but at least it didn’t mentioned cars. Well, until just now.
Zak@lemmy.world 4 days ago
The analogy between a private messaging service and a bar is not just strained; it’s nonsensical.
It might work for a chat system that’s mainly public and discoverable like Matrix, IRC, or Discord. A community having too many people, or any people who don’t follow certain norms can make it unpleasant. As long as it keeps out spammers, Signal having people I don’t want to talk to on it won’t affect me at all; I just won’t give those people my phone number or username.
egrets@lemmy.world 4 days ago
Use whatever software you want, more power to you, but I’m not totally convinced that “chaired by a fascist transphobic multibillionaire oligarch who actively subverts democracy at every opportunity” and “introduced a feature I don’t want to use into my free secure messaging app” are even close to equivocal?
solrize@lemmy.ml 4 days ago
I’m bothered mostly by the default Signal app’s inability to use a self-hosted server instead of signal.com’s own server, and have been dubious about Signal because of that. The social media feature is something I hadn’t heard of til just now. It reinforces my skepticism but it’s just another issue. I’d be more interested in Signal if I could use my own server without having to get people to install modified clients.
Zak@lemmy.world 4 days ago
I don’t like the centralized nature of it either, but until someone makes a decentralized option that’s polished and reliable enough that nobody will be mad at me after I talk them into using it, Signal will be my go-to for messaging.
Ideologically, I’d like it to be Matrix. I use Matrix on occasion, at least when Element web isn’t taking up 10% of my laptop’s RAM, ElementX isn’t crashing on load, and whatever native desktop client I tried last is actually performing key exchange so I can read my private messages. I would not try to talk someone into trying Matrix right now unless they were ideologically motivated or interested in the technology.