this post was submitted on 15 Jan 2021
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Privacy
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You totally missed my point. What I meant was that there is no difference in ease of use between Signal and Conversations/Quicksy once you have an account and it is installed on the phone. In fact XMPP is easier in some ways.
A grandparent isn't going to be using a password manager let alone remember their credentials for a multitude of accounts or even if they did, they'd be using sticky notes on their monitors or fridge doors.
It may be easier for our generation to believe in the ease of use in technology but I think it's a futile attemtpt to be passing off this knowledge upstream whom quite literally don't care or can't care enough.
No password manager is needed for XMPP. You set it up once and the password is stored in the app. In case you need to add another device, you can reset your password on many servers via email, just like any other website.
Signal on the other hand is tied to your phone number. Thus if you lose your phone or contract is cancelled, simcard breaks etc. your account is lost, unless you go through a pretty complicated procedure with your mobile phone company. And even then all your messages are lost as Signal isn't multi-client (unlike XMPP).
I'm still discussing about our grandparents. I'll break it down more succinctly: grandparents aren't going to care about an online service/app security and features. They just want shit to work and all those extra steps we take for granted won't necessarily be as productive for their generation.
Maybe you can automate the setup of xmpp or Signal with all the immediate members of their family but when something breaks, they're not going to be tech savvy enough to troubleshoot.
Which is exactly why XMPP is the much better option for them once it is set up. Much less can go wrong and shit just works. Proven for nearly 20 years now. Yes, they will probably need some advise setting it up, but this is true for pretty much anything other than WhatsApp as well.
XMPP also works great on desktop computers with really old hardware... something that a lot of grandparents will surely appreciate.
Okay, good luck with that.
Signal's plug and play.
Conversations app requires a sign up. We can't miss out the 'once you sign up' bit - it's an important step, because it stops users.
I'd prefer XMPP myself, but, my experience tells me this isn't the best method. In a hostel people complained about privacy concerns. I told them about Signal. A few go to the PlayStore page and nearly clicked 'Install'.
At this point a bigger privacy enthusiast told them not to download it, that it's not decentralized, and to go and download new super-private thing and also add your own keys to a server here, and people just put down their phones without installing either.
If you would have showed them Quicksy or Blabber.im it would have been exactly the same as Signal, except that it would not be tied to a phone number, which some travelers in a Hostel might not have available, so in fact it would have been even easier.
I don't read German.
https://blabber.im/en/, I think