> Yes, it is a little more complicated to setup, but in the end it works as good as the others
And this is quite literally true. It really only is a little more complicated. This is not a handwaving statement. You don't need any technical know-how to get Conversations running. It's only the fingerprint thing you have to explain to people who are not tech-savvy. But if you hit the right tone they'll have no problem with that either.
There is the issue of the account. Whatsapp and Telegram are free (signal too?) and require 0 setup. With Conversations, you either have to pay for a conversations.im account, or open your browser and register on another server. I certainly can't imagine my grandmother doing that.
Well, there are a few more issue. None is a real show stopper but each would be worth to be solved in the sense of usability:
- Explaining decentralization aka. 'Its like E-Mail: you need an address'
- Choosing a good provider (reliable to stay for some time, server features)
- Registering an account (many providers require a registration via browser)
- Obtaining Conversations:
-> Play store: and pay for it - 'yes, its worth it and you support the development'
-> Fdroid: free, but more complicated
- Adding contacts (as Conversations doesn't scan your address book you have to do it manually)
- Enabling OMEMO (not enabled by default)
- Adjusting settings as some default settings are kinda weird (e.g. disabling green background of encrypted messages, show online status, enabling confirmation of receipt)
So to solve those issues I have a few Ideas:
Provider selection: The App could score all available providers (important features, years of service), sort by score and let the user select the desired domain extension. Afterwards it could perform an in-band registration (it already does so if the server supports it).
Price: While I find the app totally worth its price, I think it hurts the adaption to some extent. So if I could decide it, I would make it available for free and see to make the money somewhere later in the customer journey, as setting the price up-front kills the network effect.
Contacts: Actually, I do not like it when Google & co. scan my whole address book and send it to their servers and keep it there for future use. But think there could be some compromise like: I can decide to publish my own address as a hash to some central service and use my address book to ask if someone else has registered the address (rate limited). Yes, you would still have to trust the central service to some extent, but that should be an acceptable and completely optional way of contact discovery.
OMEMO: Should be enabled by default.
Default settings: Maybe some day I will create a pull request.
While this list looks kinda intimidating, using Conversations after the installation is pretty much the same as WhatsApp/Signal.
Yes, I completely agree. I couldn't understand why it isn't default either.
As for the other points, they're all true but like you say yourself they are no show stopper especially since most people have at least one friend or family member who can assist them. People who don't understand technology have resorted to those who do for decades. Getting an e-mail adress and configuring an e-mail program was no more complicated 10-20 years ago. It's a matter of minutes to set everything up.
The adoption problem isn't one of technology but mindset. If there were a heavy marketing department behind Conversations it wouldn't be a market leader but the market share would increase significantly.
It isn't any different. In "the old days" chances were high you even could just login with that e-mail account you already had, not only with gmail but with some other larger providers as well.
And this is quite literally true. It really only is a little more complicated. This is not a handwaving statement. You don't need any technical know-how to get Conversations running. It's only the fingerprint thing you have to explain to people who are not tech-savvy. But if you hit the right tone they'll have no problem with that either.