Signal won't be able to make even a dent in WhatsApp's empire.

WhatsApp isn't just a messaging app. With its stories and statuses, it's a mini social network in and of itself.

Beyond the HackerNews crowd, most people don't care about privacy. They care about features. Signal won't be able to compete with WhatsApp unless it builds some of those features into its app.

Edit - HackerNews crowd seems to get tunnel visioned when it comes to tech products. Every response below is something on the lines of "I don't use stories" or "None or my contacts use stories".

I don't use stories either. And most millenials don't use it unless they are extroverts. But we make a small percentage of their audience.

Take a look at boomer WhatsApp in India. Every single boomer shares stories with images of Gods or daily morning blessings, where they went, what they cooked etc. The network effects are too strong. Nobody wants to miss out on the stories of their grandchildren's birthday or their nephew's marriage.

Even I wish that there was an en-masse migration from WhatsApp to Signal. But that's just a HackerNews pipe dream. Not happening.

> India is WhatsApp's biggest market with over 400 million users

> Signal saw 2,200 installs on India's app stores on Wednesday up 38% from 1,600 installs in the week ended December 30, according to mobile intelligence firm Sensor Tower. Signal saw about 51,000 installs in December, up 11% from 46,000 in November.

Its going to take a while to catch up I think, but:

> Harada declined to provide numbers, citing company policy, saying the Sensor Tower data was “directionally correct, but generally the numbers are off by a few magnitudes.”

In the part of Africa I am from, the challenge is cellular network providers sell data bundles specifically for WhatsApp. It is so much cheaper to buy a social media data bundle than generic data to use for browsing the web. As a result Telegram and Signal cannot compete.

WhatsApp is literally the internet.

Tweet from Signal themselves with app store screenshots:

https://mobile.twitter.com/signalapp/status/1347693761044701...

Also in France in Play Store, Signal is #1 now. In Trending, Signal is #1 and Telegram #3.

Check for your country on: https://play.google.com/store/apps/top

In South America practically no one has even heard of Signal. The only known alternative to Whatsapp, which dominates society at all levels, is Telegram. I'm seeing a very minor move to it and it's based on the assumption that it's more secure than Whatsapp. Just did an experiment and downloaded Signal, and while I expected a low list of adopters, out of my 1k+ contact list, literally only one person was on the app.

I feel most startups sleep hard on the massive market they're missing by skipping on SA so much.

Telegram is quite popular in India too - especially for group communication since it has a much higher membership limit. A lot of the Whatsapp groups I was part of have now moved there.

I have started pushing my friends towards Signal. Let's hope the Indian govt. does not create legal hindrances to Signal, as it is wont to do. Authoritarian tendencies are pretty damn strong out here.

WhatsApp won't easily be dethroned. Personally, I've sandboxed it by buying an el-cheapo Android and exclusively running it on that phone (using it mostly through WhatsApp web).

It's too late for the world now, though, 99.99% of people will give in to the FB threat, FB will be free to use that data - which takes 3-5 years to become stale. So as far as FB is concerned, they have received everything they need, and have that many years to manage the next fight for dominance.

But perhaps if Apple somehow introduces a "contacts" sandbox (e.g., have a contact chooser like the file chooser) and google is forced to follow suite, there won't be another one like it.

Like codeknight11 said "most people don't care about privacy". Only innovation can displace WhatsApp not privacy policy.

Edit: Innovation can be as well business model that does not involve invading user privacy or in other words privacy friendly business model that does not rely on advertising.

Some of my friend groups have moved to Signal, it's ok in a "good enough" sort of way but it's not a perfect replacement.

I'll have a hard time persuading family groups to move though, WhatsApp and Facebook are cultural touchstones for them they won't see any point in moving

Funny thing, I’ve actually never used WhatsApp after I installed it. I’m happy to see signal get more users worldwide, it’s a testament to the hard work Moxie and crew have done over the years.

matrix should be used in india because the ruling party is cracking down on dissent hard. they can do that easily with phone numbers which has the same problem with signal. matrix can be used without any email/phone which makes it perfect

Seems to be gaining popularity all around the world. https://twitter.com/signalapp/status/1347699781326438404