Opinionated is good. It means everyone gets the same predictable experience and it's easy to set up. On the opposite end of the spectrum you'd have something like IRC, which nobody uses because it's so hard to get started.

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mindslight 18 hours ago | parent [-]

If we're just throwing around straw men, then a good example of "opinionated" is websites repeatedly hassling you with CAPTCHA "security checks". They're really concerned that you suffer their exact intended "experience", rather than being able to use your chosen software tools to view/analyze per your own needs.

Open clients/protocols/ecosystems create individual freedom and choices at the edges. One size does not fit all, even if you market it as an "experience".

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tapoxi 17 hours ago | parent [-]

We've had a lot of open systems and protocols, SIP, XMPP, Matrix, desktop Linux, Mastodon. It only gains adoption from the technologically savvy and fails to capture a regular user base.

My mother, a 70 year old retired special education teacher, got me and my extended family (21 people) on Signal. I didn't tell her about it, I didn't encourage her to use it, I didn't step her through the process. She doesn't know how to make a folder.

Signal hasn't beaten WhatsApp (which still uses Signal protocol) due to network effects, but it is a great solution for everyday users.

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mindslight 16 hours ago | parent [-]

This relies on an implicit idea that a system being closed is required for encouraging adoption, but without actually stating a concrete mechanism for that.

One such mechanism I often lament is that closed systems attract investment dollars seeking to capture a market then eventually enshittify, and that investment can be spent on marketing/polish/etc to drive adoption. I don't think this is the dynamic around Signal though, per se.

I can envision a world in which Signal still did everything they did to promote themselves, while also not binding themselves to mobile phones, Google Play, phone numbers as identity, secure enclaves, etc - where they were just as successful at gaining "normie" adoption, while also having a free foundation. This is where my criticism is coming from.

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inigyou 9 hours ago | parent [-]

That's one mechanism, but another mechanism is what I said - an open system fragments too much, making it completely unapproachable. Or even within one "vendor" if they can't make up their mind about how it should work (i.e. if they can't be opinionated) it's just as bad as being fragmented.

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mindslight 6 hours ago | parent [-]

If there is still one company pushing their own strongly opinionated client, how does having competing options available to power users detract from that? Like I'm not saying Signal-the-client should go away, rather that Signal-the-company who runs Signal-the-server could be accepting of third party clients, to the point where Signal was easily usable from F-Droid and whatnot. How would that undermine the mass market option?

	▲	inigyou 13 minutes ago \| parent [-]
		They do accept third party clients. They don't like it, but they don't have a choice, because they don't use device attestation.