Decentralization is good to help protect the user against abuses from the central service provider.
It also encourages competition, since the user can switch to a different service, and not be penalized by network effects preventing them from communicating with other people.
I use MX records in my domain so that I can switch to any mail provider I want, and people will still be able to contact me with the same address.
How is this possible in a centralized system? If I switch from WhatsApp to Signal, I lose all my contacts. If I want to keep communicating with them, then I have to convince them to switch to a different app, or just never stop using whatsapp. The network effects dynamic here makes it very difficult to switch from one centralized encrypted chat provider to another. If you try to leave, you lose all your contacts.
The other thing I dislike is that they all seem to require a valid phone number. This puts you at the mercy of the phone company. If you change your phone number, then you have to get all your contacts to change their contact info for you. This is a huge step back, compared to email with own domain and MX records!
The other thing I dislike about these centralized encrypted chat providers is the lack of client choice. 1 company can only support so many platforms, fair enough. But that will likely mean I'll never see the company develop a Linux desktop client, or a terminal based client for their network. And because of centralization, no-one else will be allowed to develop one either. In contrast, there are many different tools I can use for sending and receiving email on the Linux desktop, cli based backup tools, etc.
And as far as the spam problem goes, I'm not sure how Signal/WhatsApp are better in this regard? If you have to give your signal address to out for people to communicate with you, or to do business with a company, then I don't see why companies can't just spam you. Signal can centrally filter all messages you receive to make sure they don't have spam in them and block spammers messages from going through (but this is no different than what many mail providers also do). You can block individual contacts, but that doesn't help if there are a very large number of different accounts sending spam. You can whitelist your contacts, but then noone you don't know that wants to talk to you can contact you.
It also doesn't stop known contacts from sending spam to you either because
- They are forwarding spam messages to you, like chain letters.
- They got a virus or some malware which sends spam to all their contacts
- It's a "legit" company you need to receive communication with, but sends spam mixed with vital communication: marketing lists you get auto-opted into (imagine if all the "give us your email to read the article" pop overs got replaced with "add us on signal to read the article"), amazon sale ads, facebook constantly trying to entice you to go back on the site, etc.
If signal replaced email, I don't see how it could remain spam free.
It also encourages competition, since the user can switch to a different service, and not be penalized by network effects preventing them from communicating with other people.
I use MX records in my domain so that I can switch to any mail provider I want, and people will still be able to contact me with the same address.
How is this possible in a centralized system? If I switch from WhatsApp to Signal, I lose all my contacts. If I want to keep communicating with them, then I have to convince them to switch to a different app, or just never stop using whatsapp. The network effects dynamic here makes it very difficult to switch from one centralized encrypted chat provider to another. If you try to leave, you lose all your contacts.
The other thing I dislike is that they all seem to require a valid phone number. This puts you at the mercy of the phone company. If you change your phone number, then you have to get all your contacts to change their contact info for you. This is a huge step back, compared to email with own domain and MX records!
The other thing I dislike about these centralized encrypted chat providers is the lack of client choice. 1 company can only support so many platforms, fair enough. But that will likely mean I'll never see the company develop a Linux desktop client, or a terminal based client for their network. And because of centralization, no-one else will be allowed to develop one either. In contrast, there are many different tools I can use for sending and receiving email on the Linux desktop, cli based backup tools, etc.
And as far as the spam problem goes, I'm not sure how Signal/WhatsApp are better in this regard? If you have to give your signal address to out for people to communicate with you, or to do business with a company, then I don't see why companies can't just spam you. Signal can centrally filter all messages you receive to make sure they don't have spam in them and block spammers messages from going through (but this is no different than what many mail providers also do). You can block individual contacts, but that doesn't help if there are a very large number of different accounts sending spam. You can whitelist your contacts, but then noone you don't know that wants to talk to you can contact you.
It also doesn't stop known contacts from sending spam to you either because
- They are forwarding spam messages to you, like chain letters.
- They got a virus or some malware which sends spam to all their contacts
- It's a "legit" company you need to receive communication with, but sends spam mixed with vital communication: marketing lists you get auto-opted into (imagine if all the "give us your email to read the article" pop overs got replaced with "add us on signal to read the article"), amazon sale ads, facebook constantly trying to entice you to go back on the site, etc.
If signal replaced email, I don't see how it could remain spam free.