lemm.ee

6 points

16 hours ago

Yeah, that does bother me. But it’s also a lot easier to build a centralized service like that than to get people on a decentralized one.

If you really want something private and are willing to jump through a few hoops, Simplex exists. But most people aren’t willing to jump through a few hoops, and even Signal (a pretty low bar) is a hard enough sell as it is. And that’s why I use Signal, because it’s my best chance to get people onto something better. In other words, don’t let perfect be the enemy of better.

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helenslunch@feddit.nl

0 points

15 hours ago

But it’s also a lot easier to build a centralized service like that than to get people on a decentralized one.

Is it? No one seems to have problems using email.

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4 points

15 hours ago

Yet pretty much everyone uses the same one: gmail.

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helenslunch@feddit.nl

1 point

15 hours ago

not true. Plenty of people use Yahoo, Outlook, Proton, and some even use AOL!

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3 points

15 hours ago

Sure, and I use Tuta. Those are outliers, the vast majority use gmail, or at least the vast majority in my circles do.

It’s the same thing as the network effect, just a little less ubiquitous, people will tend to use whatever everyone else uses. Getting something new like email (SMTP) is a huge endeavor, it’s a lot easier to just build a centralized service and get people to use that, and most people will use the same provider anyway.

I don’t like it, but I understand why it works and is so common.

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helenslunch@feddit.nl

2 points

15 hours ago

Those are outliers

…I don’t understand your point. Do outliers make it not decentralized?

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0 points

14 hours ago

No, those being outliers means the email argument isn’t particularly strong, especially when talking about a new standard. If most people use a single service anyway, why would a company go out of its way to make something decentralized? And for something like encrypted chat, that’s a lot of extra work.

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