Comment by somehnacct3757

Signal's maneuver may be rational, but that doesn't make it good business. You can't just release a chat app into the wild. You need some strategy for how you will bootstrap users. If you build it they won't come.

Some chat apps bootstrapped by riding emerging markets with exorbitant SMS costs. Others bootstrapped by cross-promotion from existing popular communication networks.

Signal's strategy was to replace your current SMS app as-is and then incentivize you over to their network one contact at a time. It didn't work, for the stated reasons, which honestly sound like failures of product design and engineering more than anything else. Apple's Message app has the same strategy and it's working.

We haven't actually seen what Signal's next strategy will be, which is maybe a timing mistake as announcing a viable alternative could have taken some heat off the SMS retirement announcement. Or maybe there isn't a next strategy?

'The super secure chat network' is not a bootstrap strategy, it's a build it and they won't come strategy; so I think it's fair to remain bearish on Signal's future even after reading a rational take on why writing SMS apps are difficult.