I got a new job. whatsapp group (20 people) is migrating to signal because I don't use it.

Surprised that happened. Very rare to see that these days.

At first from the title it seemed like they changed app to avoid you

Before Signal made the boneheaded move of removing SMS support, it was so much easier for me to pitch the idea of using Signal to my friends and family, most of which eventually did make the shift from SMS to Signal messages for reasons like ease of use when it came to group chats, sending images/videos, voice clips, etc.

But now? Now it's one of those embarrassing moments where I hear back from people basically all saying "your tech recommendations are usually on point but uh, what happened with Signal???" because the app just abruptly stopped supporting SMS and ruined the seamless appeal. SMS support was the perfect way to ease people into shifting towards Signal messages and now the only damn people I know who still know Signal are my most privacy-minded friends/family, while everyone else has switched back to WhatsApp.

Clearly I'm not bitter...😅 But I mean like, come on. I had the most notorious luddites in my social circle make the switch to Signal and they loved it. The shift from SMS to Signal messages was so smooth so many of them didn't even have that "I miss [SMS stuff]", plus they LOVED that Signal could be used on their laptops in addition to their phones. Ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh this annoys me so much.

I have a feeling B wanted to use Signal, but expected it to be difficult to make others shift. When OP gave the opportunity, B came in and swyped it right away,

This headline sounds a lot funnier if you assume "it" means Signal, like I did.

Still, you were lucky that your colleagues are aware of alternatives and will use it (I hope). I wonder though if people will migrate because of you. Its tough to encourage others to communicate Signal while majority use Messenger or Whatsapp. Their reasoning for that is the most friends and family member are on mainstream solutions.

Signal is an interim solution imo for most people, which I also recommend. Not too extreme, not to "geeky", which introduces them to alternative app world.

What did you do to offend them?

If i ever get a job and have to use whatsapp, im using to use all those stupid stickers in every message i send

Why would a workplace need a group chat? Aren't there any enterprise tools in place to achieve that?

I wish my family was that easy to change, and there are only five of us.

In all my years of not using WhatsApp this has never happened to me lol. At best I've gotten some people to message me individually on Signal but not entire groups

Sure and then Santa gave everyone free librebooted thinkpads.

Do you have a vacancy?

Misread the post title, thought everybody jumped and left you all alone.

these 20 people are awesome :D

Wow, congrats.

my workplace only IRC and xmpp for work related chat

dream team

And i can’t even convince my family…

Damn...

You must be really good

Heck yeah! I got a small work group to use Element instead of slack or discord once. I was so proud of them. Kudos for you.

People dont install Signal for me, especially feo groups. They use arguments like "yeah, and I also might have reasons not to use Signal like I do with Whatsapp"

Kinda disrespectful to put a line against a data selling app and comparing it to "nah, I just dont wanna"

For a second I thought you meant you don't use Signal, so they all went there on purpose to avoid you.

For people wondering how to do this in your own lives, have two phones. Have a phone that you install work stuff on, including proprietary apps like WhatsApp. Just tell the people around you hey you can contact me on WhatsApp, but I only see it when I'm at my desk during business hours. I do use more privacy focused platforms on my personal device that you can reach me anytime, such a signal or simple x or matrix. And you'll find a lot of people are very flexible as long as you give them some reason, and you're not being unreasonable yourself.

If only everyone was like that...

@GravitySpoiled I love this, I had a very similar situation with my sports group, litte questions asked as well! Best thing was the reaction from the leader "I you are kind of right anyways, we should get rid of WhatsApp."
Problems only appeared later down the line with people complaining that they don't get notifications and it's not a habit for them to check it, so they don't see new messages.

Now tell them you just switched to matrix and see if they'll follow

Probably they were on the edge already, but it's good that they have made the switch

What's wrong with Signal: https://github.com/dessalines/essays/blob/main/why_not_signal.md

TLDR: Funded by the CIA, centralized in the US and phone numbers make you personally identifiable.

It is good indeed they're actually decent people, however I'm sad they switched to a piece of shit of a software that fails to sync messages at any opportunity and delivers a poor user experience in most platforms by not being native / following platform specific UI guidelines.

Why don't you use WhatsApp?

Signal is so bloated compared to Conversations on Android. Also it's a walled garden requiring your ph number to register (edit: and requires owning a smart phone👎). Based in the US so not great for privacy. Marginally better than Whatsapp suppose.

Edit: and it requires a smart phone.