Better to consider second order effects. People have lives to live, and connecting with people is the most important thing. You'll actually help more if you DO stay connected and, over time, let them know and offer to help with using a diverse range of communications technology over time.
I've been faced with this choice, more or less, and (in my case) NOT choosing to be a stickler about it (and joining up with people on Discord) has opened up my and their worlds quite a bit.
This is a special case. Which is to say, it's weird that the technology you're trying to get rid of or improve at present still might be the best tool to get it done, but hey.
Just using XMPP alone is a slight upgrade from those services either way TBH
Someone who won’t install a trivial and safe free app to maintain connection with you is perhaps not as valuable a connection as one might think.
I also have a life to live, and it is important to me that living that life does not make the world more dangerous for myself, my loved ones, and others in society. Surveillance systems do that, so I don’t use them.
Reminds me at duckduckgo: makes claims and builds big branding about security but nobody (including me) ever questioned them. (Regarding article not at hand but of course also on HN.)
The first question I would ask: how does Signal finances itself when the service is practically "free"...
For the rest I totally agree: I could also convince some for XMPP/Jabber while at the same time it lets me question my relationship to those I couldn't move. I mean it's not that these days you couldn't install a second app if you already have 50 useless i.e. "coupon" apps installed anyway.
Don't get me started on this. It saddens me to see so much resistance from a lot of my friends that don't even want to try a tiny, privacy-friendly, open-source, non-battery consuming app when they have like 50 attention-stealing spyware apps installed on their phone. Marketing works scandalously well.
That's a pretty radical stance and I respect it.
However, I consider that keeping in touch with people that don't get why they shouldn't use Meta or Google is actually more productive than bubbling myself in a hacktivist bubble. I actually have more chance to get them interested in mass surveillance concerns by keeping in touch than by ghosting them.
Using surveillance platforms makes the world worse, so I don’t.
I personally think XMPP is superior to signal, being decentralised and with an open governance. For instance, I've not yet seen some cryptocurrency crap being pushed at me on the XMPP side, which I very much enjoy. I wish everybody moved to XMPP, but apparently it's not going to happen anytime soon, so in the meantime, I'll try to contribute to making XMPP the best instant messaging network. When everyone moves to XMPP, then slidge will have no reason to exist anymore, and my evil plan will have succeeded.
If you believe that private communications are important, you should delete your account on unencrypted services (iMessage, Discord, Telegram, Instagram, Facebook, etc) so that you are not reachable at all via these methods.
Otherwise you personally serve as the honey in the surveillance trap.