Folks, I have finally figured it out.
Have a baby.
Since having a baby a week ago, all of a sudden everyone is willing to install a decent messaging app in order to receive pics of the baby.
We explained that we weren’t ready for images of our child to end up in the wrong hands via non-private apps. Another thing was telling them that the one single friend who had already got on board with this had already been recieving pics…
It’s been a conversation starter for many and I think seeing privacy from the point of view of a newborn has helped our family and friends understand it a bit more easily. Plus they’ve had to put up with it if they want any photos, so they will see it working firsthand.
So, if you want to have a baby, know that it can be a wonderful opportunity to help loved ones communicate more privately.
It also increases the sum total of love, community and compassion in the world and in your own life but that’s a conversation for another community :)
Edit: If anyone has good tips on how to share a little one’s journey more privately with those that care about them, please post them in the discussion.
Interesting story. t y for sharing. And what did you push this crowd of people into ? :) Signal, Matrix, XMPP, Briar, Session ?
Signal is the only thing I advocate. Everything else has a really high bar for nontechnical people.
Jami and Session are as simple as copying and pasting an ID; no more complex than email in reality. But it is a sign of how deeply set in our ways we are that even that can seem arcane when you first use it. Signal does make it extremely easy/familiar.
I really like both Session and Jami’s ability to add contacts by scanning each others qr codes too.
I think as more people start using these apps they will feel more familiar and less daunting. I think that really it’s a familiarity thing.
We got them using Session. My girlfriend and I currently use Jami for text/calls/files but I found that Session worked more reliably with my friend who uses an iphone, so we went with that. So far so good!
In case you don’t already know, to make voice calls with Session you have to enable it in the settings. I also recommend changing the theme from the stock ‘bio-hazard’ one!
I thought signal is better than session, they’re basically the same but signal has a larger userbase.
Signal feels like you’re still using a texting app. Session feels like a modern (post-2000) messenger.
Doesn’t seem like a big deal, but people react to it.
Yes I think Session is in fact based on Signal but it has implemented some other technologies like a distributed network, as opposed to Signal’s, which I believe is centralised. There’s also some blockchain stuff involved, which I normally find a turnoff but I’m not an expert. Rob Braxman has a good review of it on YouTube and Odysee.
Only the texting side of Session is decentralized. Everything else goes through Oxen’s servers.