Yes, it kind of goes against the idea of sharing when you are limiting your post visibility to only a handful of people in your network. Not all of your friends are going to install addons to every browser they use and maintain yet another network of trust.

Reminds me of http://craphound.com/spamsolutions.txt

Encrypted email has been around and built into email clients by default forever and nobody uses it. Even just signing emails gets quizzical responses every now from people I send to (why do all your emails have a weird attachment?). The mere need give decryption keys to your contacts by a back channel has been sadly enough to push it over the edge of usability. People prefer total lack of security to even the most minor inconvenience.

It's sobering and worth deep contemplation by anyone thinking about solving this issue.

What you need is some sort of false flag operation. If the people are frightened they will sit up straight and do what they should.

> "I think Privly is best viewed as an argument in code. It's an attempt to expand the philosophical and technical terrain on which the privacy debate is playing out."

I think debates on privacy (and even what it means to have a digital identity) are important and things like privly help push this forward.

I'm not convinced by the implementation but I'm glad they made something.

Thanks, and with help, our implementation will monotonically increase in convincingness.