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A comment on Ask HN: Why does P2P encrypted messaging still suck?.

Re:Ask HN: Why does P2P encrypted messaging still suck? by jedberg on Tuesday April 03, 2018 @02:58PM (#16747943)
Money. It's not profitable to run an encrypted messaging service for free, because you can't extract any data from the chats, and people aren't willing to pay what it costs to maintain a good app.
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Re:Ask HN: Why does P2P encrypted messaging still suck? by ReverseCold on Wednesday April 04, 2018 @12:26AM (#16751904)
Then can we (the people) donate our time to make an end to end encrypted, decentralized, peer to peer, optionally anonymous (through Tor or whatever if necessary), native chat client for all relevant platforms?

It takes a few maintainers per platform and a few people willing to lead the effort, but I think we could get enough people on Hacker News to help out.

(I've actually been debating making an "Ask HN: Would you join this effort?" post but have been putting it off for one reason or another.)

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Re:Ask HN: Why does P2P encrypted messaging still suck? by sshine on Wednesday April 04, 2018 @04:27AM (#16753014)
In some ways, the ideal scenario is to have a funded, privacy-aware NGO maintain a messenger service, but:

https://blog.torproject.org/sunsetting-tor-messenger

"We, the people" is such a fragile concept when it comes to resource stability (time, money, dedication). Looking at a project like Linux, there are commercial interests that fund a large part of the pipeline.

Running the actual network and developing the various messenger clients add a layer of organizational complexity that, in my perspective, only private companies have been able to honor, and only to the extent described by the OP.

One could settle for less Service, but then we have XMPP with various encryption schemes. Too complex to set up.

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Re:Ask HN: Why does P2P encrypted messaging still suck? by ReverseCold on Wednesday April 04, 2018 @11:01AM (#16755349)
> Running the actual network

The ideal would require no servers, because the chat would be fully peer to peer. People wanting to be anonymous could just connect through Tor. (Each user account is just a private key, etc, etc.)

Of course, in reality everything is behind a NAT and/or firewall. It wouldn't be too difficult to have "dumb" servers that just exist to pass messages hosted by the community though.

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Re:Ask HN: Why does P2P encrypted messaging still suck? by aeorgnoieang on Tuesday April 03, 2018 @03:42PM (#16748383)
Maybe a company could allow paying customers to invite 10 of their contacts to use the app/service for free. Or is even the potential association of all of those people too insecure?

I otherwise can't imagine how to bootstrap a network.

Maybe users could pay to receive messages.

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Re:Ask HN: Why does P2P encrypted messaging still suck? by narag on Tuesday April 03, 2018 @06:09PM (#16749847)
I otherwise can't imagine how to bootstrap a network.

Facebook started with a narrow target: students of some uni. Look for another similar group of persons, that want privacy and don't mind spending a few dollars.

Edit: Whatsapp (everybody here in Spain has it) was a paid app at first. They gave one year away... eventually they made it free, around the time that Facebook bought it.

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Re:Ask HN: Why does P2P encrypted messaging still suck? by aeorgnoieang on Wednesday April 04, 2018 @10:14AM (#16754841)
One problem with bootstrapping a network of users of an encrypted messaging app/service is that info about the network of users itself arguably needs to be secured too.

But you're still probably right overall. Marketing to businesses or teams within businesses is probably the best bet.

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Re:Ask HN: Why does P2P encrypted messaging still suck? by kerng on Tuesday April 03, 2018 @09:55PM (#16751230)
Yeah, wondering how WhatsApp would be doing if Facebook wouldn't have bought them. It might have been much better for the market if they would still be independent.
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Re:Ask HN: Why does P2P encrypted messaging still suck? by dharness on Tuesday April 03, 2018 @07:53PM (#16750584)
When it targeted a narrow band of uni students Facebook was free, and didn't have ads
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Re:Ask HN: Why does P2P encrypted messaging still suck? by Something1234 on Tuesday April 03, 2018 @04:15PM (#16748654)
> Maybe users could pay _receive_ messages.

Pay to recieve a possibly unsolicited message?!

That's insane.

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Re:Ask HN: Why does P2P encrypted messaging still suck? by aeorgnoieang on Tuesday April 03, 2018 @04:30PM (#16748805)
Yeah, even requiring users to _send_ messages probably isn't enough to prevent spam. But that's assuming something like the example I imagined, someone wanting to received encrypted messages from anonymous others.

If a user's address is private tho, then asking them to pay to receive messages should be as sensible as the degree to which they protect the distribution of their address.

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Re:Ask HN: Why does P2P encrypted messaging still suck? by agrue on Tuesday April 03, 2018 @05:44PM (#16749619)
Unlimited texting as the norm is pretty new, carriers have charged for incoming and outgoing MMS since it became a thing. Same with minutes and received calls.
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Re:Ask HN: Why does P2P encrypted messaging still suck? by andrewflnr on Tuesday April 03, 2018 @10:13PM (#16751314)
Getting charged to receive a message I didn't ask for was bullshit then and it's bullshit now. The difference is that people are even less likely to tolerate it now.
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Re:Ask HN: Why does P2P encrypted messaging still suck? by uoaei on Wednesday April 04, 2018 @05:10AM (#16753185)
Donate to Open Whisper Systems (maintainer of Signal and led by the designer of the encryption protocol therein). It recently became a 501c nonprofit organization following a hefty donation, but one day that will dry up and they will need continued support.
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Re:Ask HN: Why does P2P encrypted messaging still suck? by est on Tuesday April 03, 2018 @09:12PM (#16751008)
should have adopt the IRC mode. Allow people to self-host servers.
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Re:Ask HN: Why does P2P encrypted messaging still suck? by ReAzem on Saturday April 07, 2018 @11:22AM (#16781120)
Savoir-faire Linux has been doing it with Ring (https://ring.cx) (initially sflphone) since 2004.

It turns out that the skills that the company has acquired by doing this pays back with consulting contracts.

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Re:Ask HN: Why does P2P encrypted messaging still suck? by Nuzzerino on Tuesday April 03, 2018 @11:56PM (#16751763)
We have so many decades of improvements in programming methodologies and sophistication, yet independent developers still cannot produce viable software which is alternative to the for-profit model?
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Re:Ask HN: Why does P2P encrypted messaging still suck? by nfd on Tuesday April 03, 2018 @11:59PM (#16751776)
I suppose they can. Please do!
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Re:Ask HN: Why does P2P encrypted messaging still suck? by Herald_MJ on Tuesday April 03, 2018 @07:03PM (#16750244)
And what about non-free?
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Re:Ask HN: Why does P2P encrypted messaging still suck? by ReverseCold on Wednesday April 04, 2018 @12:22AM (#16751882)
Threema is pretty good. Unfortunately it also sucks.

(Sucks as defined by OP)

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