I got threema at launch for iOS. Still haven't managed to find anyone else using it unfortunately.

Same here. Threema sounds best on paper. I'm definitely going to try to use atleast within my family. But, I don't hope to have a thriving network around it any time soon.

Too bad the masses don't get the privacy angle in free products. I feel like FB<->WhatsApp is counting on just that by using a unintuitive "opt-out" policy. The moms,dads, and not so tech aware citizens won't even know what goes on underneath. They would be feeling falsely proud to use a 'secure','E-E encrypted' service not knowing 'privacy' is different from them.

I am wondering why everybody wants a service provider and nobody seems to care about an open solution. If you choose an provider you are always bound to its fate. We have 20+ global messaging networks which do not cooperate/communicate with each other.

I am using XMPP and it works as good as any other messaging app (fast end-2-end encryption included). And since it is an _federated_ protocol I am not bound to any provider.

There is just one major problem:

There seems to be a lack of client developers, because most clients are simply not up-to-date. I am using 'conversations' as an android client, which is quite good, but the desktop clients seem to lack any development momentum.

Let me know what you think, if you get to try it out.

well not paid but signal seems pretty well funded and not likely to sell.

What about Telegram? It's free though...

Telegram doesn't use encryption by default.

Yes, I realized that after I gave it a try. Felt really really dumb considering they have the facility already.