There are opportunities that are rare or unique, and it doesn't matter that you're "catching up" - either you're good enough when the opportunity arises, or you've missed that window.
You might get a second chance later, but this opportunity is lost, and the options aren't "Signal or Matrix", the options are "Signal or frustrate people, get them to go back to Whatsapp, and be even more reluctant to switch later".
And even if through some magic Element was polished right now: Signal has been polished for years now, and as a result, has built up a brand and user base.
I'm not going to be able to switch all my already switch-reluctant friends to something they haven't heard about and that nobody uses; I am going to be able to switch them to Signal, because they've already been pestered about it by several people, have heard about it in the news, and (except for today, which is a huge problem for adoption/switching people over), it works.
At least on Android, Element is simply not suitable for end users. I'm not talking about some poorly formatted UI, I'm talking about confusing/broken UX and features that don't properly work.
So I put my tech elitism away and do what works, because otherwise we'll be stuck with Facebook.
Edit: Forgot the biggest problem: Matrix has no chance because it doesn't use phone numbers as a forced default. With Signal, if your friends have already installed it, you can just start using it with them. With Matrix, you can't. This is one of the hard choices that Moxie made that is a bit of a dick move but was absolutely necessary.
Exactly, which means that it lost.
There are opportunities that are rare or unique, and it doesn't matter that you're "catching up" - either you're good enough when the opportunity arises, or you've missed that window.
You might get a second chance later, but this opportunity is lost, and the options aren't "Signal or Matrix", the options are "Signal or frustrate people, get them to go back to Whatsapp, and be even more reluctant to switch later".
And even if through some magic Element was polished right now: Signal has been polished for years now, and as a result, has built up a brand and user base.
I'm not going to be able to switch all my already switch-reluctant friends to something they haven't heard about and that nobody uses; I am going to be able to switch them to Signal, because they've already been pestered about it by several people, have heard about it in the news, and (except for today, which is a huge problem for adoption/switching people over), it works.
At least on Android, Element is simply not suitable for end users. I'm not talking about some poorly formatted UI, I'm talking about confusing/broken UX and features that don't properly work.
So I put my tech elitism away and do what works, because otherwise we'll be stuck with Facebook.
Edit: Forgot the biggest problem: Matrix has no chance because it doesn't use phone numbers as a forced default. With Signal, if your friends have already installed it, you can just start using it with them. With Matrix, you can't. This is one of the hard choices that Moxie made that is a bit of a dick move but was absolutely necessary.