BFM+Exclusive

A more private WhatsApp?

8 mins

Summary

Elon Musk, Jack Dorsey and Edward Snowden are just 3 of the influential advocates for Signal—a messaging app that’s like WhatsApp, but with more of a focus on privacy.

And when WhatsApp announced changes to their data-sharing policy, Signal exploded.

But this rapid growth has introduced a UX complexity: the app is now being used by a much broader group of people.

Signal may be more private than WhatsApp, but if they ever want to rival their 2 billion users (yes, you read that correctly), then they’ll need a product that’s just as easy to use.

The golden question is this: when the hype dies, will people be able to convince their lazy friends, who don’t care about internet privacy, to sign up?

The answer to that depends on a number of factors, one being how easy the experience of migrating from WhatsApp to Signal is. So let’s take a look.