Agreed. I actually think the opposite of GP too. If you want people to transition from proprietary services, you need to ease them into it over time. If you make something truly more valuable without the downside of "jumping ship", people will come.

Just using XMPP alone is a slight upgrade from those services either way TBH

My friends and family and coworkers installed Signal to talk to me.

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.

I agree but I'm confused how you can use Signal in the same sentence then.

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.

> 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.

Signal is a nonprofit that depends on donations.

>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.

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.

I’m not an activist. I simply wish to not make the world worse via my own direct actions.

Using surveillance platforms makes the world worse, so I don’t.

Arguably, calling other human beings "non valuable connections" does not make the world a better place either.