Comment by Arathorn
6 years ago
I'd argue that Matrix also chooses pragmatism over purity - the balance is more that we prioritise freedom as well as privacy.
Signal's whole mantra of "only implement features which are privacy preserving" is a great mentality. It's just a shame it comes at the expense of locking down the platform.
I'd argue you can't prioritise two things: prioritisation means deciding what comes first when you have to choose between two things. And it appears to me that Signal tries to ensure privacy first, and then sees if it can make that work with freedom later (see e.g. the delay in adding support for de-googled Android, or the ground work they're only doing now that might (or might not) lead to accounts without phone numbers), whereas Matrix does it the other way around (by first working on support for many different clients, and then trying to make that work with encryption). I hope that both succeed, and I'm happy that both paths are taken.
As an aside, I'd like to voice my appreciation for how you respectfully acknowledged moxie's point of view, take effort to understand it, and then pinpoint why you reach different conclusions from the same observations. A pleasure to read.