Half way through 2020, my Facebook account was randomly shut down.
I’ll write more on that another time, but since then, I’ve had Signal as a messenger app on the phone.
Signal has been around since 2014, and their “zag” is that your messages are private, or, “encrypted.”
Sure, for some people this is important because nobody can read the content. But for most people like me, this means something else…
Because the app is designed around privacy, it’s fundamentally designed for the user. The encryption means that your data isn’t tracked or collected like it is with other messaging apps, which means that it can’t be used to place ads or content on any kind of “feed.”
Unlike Facebook, insta, or any of the other social platforms, with Signal, the user is the customer (as opposed to being the “product” that’s sold to the advertiser).
The problem is, like all social apps, Signal benefits from the network effect – the more users that are on there, the better it gets. Right now, there aren’t enough people on there for the masses to jump across.
So will Signal cross the chasm? Or will the distraction, stickiness, and existing networks on the other giant apps mean that it remains an app for just a few of us?
The experience and features of an app or business are important, but a lot of time this experience is dependent on who else is hanging around.
