Eh, whatsapp isn’t ideal and its owner is one of the big devils of today, but it’s the only way to send and receive instant messages among billions of people. I despise it, but it’s the only way I can contact people. Needless to say, they don’t give a single flying fuck about privacy.
Whatsapp outages make people migrate to Telegram for 1-2 days at most, nobody ends up staying there. Signal? I’ve only ever met three other people in RL who have even heard of it, and I work in IT.
A more apt comparison would be to languages. Whatsapp is english: clunky, weird, full of nonsense, but it’s what “everyone talks”. Signal would probably be lojban or esperanto.
Aside from needing a phone, I really don’t see the issue with SMS. For sending quick messages to people directly, is there really a better tool? You (most likely) already have a phone plan, you already have a phone, and your phone is always on you. Everyone you’re trying to contact is in the same boat, even people who are technically illiterate. All phones with phone plans support SMS, unless there’s weird plans I don’t know about.
When it comes to more complex needs (group management, e2e encryption, etc) other services are better of course. I don’t use SMS to text my group of friends, it’s really not well suited for the job.
That is a huge one for me. Yes, I have a phone. But I spend most of my waking time in front of a desktop or laptop. With Whatsapp, Telegram or Signal I can read and write messages from the computer, copy/paste text to the documents I am writing, and send and download files. SMS are more limited.
I use SMS for work. It’s the one we all know what message we send through will present the same on the other side regardless of phone. A big downside is that it’s limited to the phone. Messenger and WhatsApp can be read on laptops.
I don’t disagree, but that wasn’t my point. Everyone has access to SMS messaging. Not everyone has an internet-based messaging app, and those who do are split among several different services.
Eh, whatsapp isn’t ideal and its owner is one of the big devils of today, but it’s the only way to send and receive instant messages among billions of people. I despise it, but it’s the only way I can contact people. Needless to say, they don’t give a single flying fuck about privacy.
Whatsapp outages make people migrate to Telegram for 1-2 days at most, nobody ends up staying there. Signal? I’ve only ever met three other people in RL who have even heard of it, and I work in IT.
A more apt comparison would be to languages. Whatsapp is english: clunky, weird, full of nonsense, but it’s what “everyone talks”. Signal would probably be lojban or esperanto.
This is SMS in the US. No one uses WhatsApp, telegram or matrix. Every iphone user uses imessage and so we are stuck with SMS.
Aside from needing a phone, I really don’t see the issue with SMS. For sending quick messages to people directly, is there really a better tool? You (most likely) already have a phone plan, you already have a phone, and your phone is always on you. Everyone you’re trying to contact is in the same boat, even people who are technically illiterate. All phones with phone plans support SMS, unless there’s weird plans I don’t know about.
When it comes to more complex needs (group management, e2e encryption, etc) other services are better of course. I don’t use SMS to text my group of friends, it’s really not well suited for the job.
That is a huge one for me. Yes, I have a phone. But I spend most of my waking time in front of a desktop or laptop. With Whatsapp, Telegram or Signal I can read and write messages from the computer, copy/paste text to the documents I am writing, and send and download files. SMS are more limited.
SMS does not have any encryption at all.
Of course it doesn’t, I even called that out :)
I use SMS for work. It’s the one we all know what message we send through will present the same on the other side regardless of phone. A big downside is that it’s limited to the phone. Messenger and WhatsApp can be read on laptops.
SMS is hard to have on multiple devices and it is hell of a work to become SMS provider. Internet based messaging is better in a every single way.
Even the network range is now not an advantage, as 3G is shutting down in many regions.
I don’t disagree, but that wasn’t my point. Everyone has access to SMS messaging. Not everyone has an internet-based messaging app, and those who do are split among several different services.
I’m not sure I have all of them, but I regularly use (privately)
I’m tired boss.