Signalling a race against time

There is every chance that soon, we will all forget about Signal and go back to WhatsApp. Because, a messaging app with a better privacy policy may not be better if your friends and family are not on it.

As a child of the nineties, I have had the privilege of watching the internet evolve over the ages. I remember rushing back from school and throwing away my bag to switch on the computer and the internet. Back in the day, you had to fire up the internet through a landline connection. And while you were online, if someone wanted to use the landline, the internet connection would be disrupted. But boy, was all of it worth it. I would have gone anywhere on the internet (but mostly stayed at Orkut) to chat with my friends.

‘Network effects’ made Orkut the place for me, just as they make social media apps like WhatsApp popular today. The basic idea behind network effects is that you are on WhatsApp because your friends are on it, and your friends are on it because their friends (and you) are on it. It’s a simple principle and one that is likely going to be the downfall of Signal.

Let me explain. Earlier this month, WhatsApp announced an update to its privacy policy. The app was going to share more data with its parent, Facebook. While people generally accept terms and conditions and move on with their lives, unfortunately for WhatsApp, they took notice. Amid privacy concerns, a million people began to join Signal every day in a bid to
secure their conversations and meta data. In the process, I got cautiously excited.

As someone who spends a fair amount of time reading about technology, I can’t begin to tell you how rare it is for people to differentiate between products based on their privacy policies. In my ideal world, if a person had to choose between a pair of headphones from Bose or Sony, and both of them were equally good, they would go with the one that collects lesser data. Yes, in case your headphones use an app, they collect data about you. Stuff like what you are listening to and when, among other things.

Herculean task

So believe me when I say that it is a minor miracle that Signal is an alternative that is preferred solely because of better privacy practices. People are switching just like they did during the temporary exodus from Twitter to Mastodon. But, if history is any guide to go by, this is a race against time for Signal.

Like my time on Orkut, people will only stay on Signal if their friends do. Right now, people are likely to have both WhatsApp and Signal on their phones. Despite what Signal might say, this is a winner-takes-all scenario and outperforming WhatsApp’s network effects will be a herculean task. What makes it worse is that WhatsApp might unveil a UPI-based payments feature later this year.

As WhatsApp’s Chief Operating Officer Matt Idema puts it, Instagram and Facebook are about to become the storefront, and WhatsApp the cash register. If that is challenge not enough, Signal is not the only alternative people are switching to. It also has to compete with Telegram for the market share. Hence, it is no guarantee that people leaving WhatsApp will directly come to and stay with Signal.

There is every chance that later this year we will all forget about Signal and go back to WhatsApp to stay in touch with our friends. Because, a messaging application with a better privacy policy may not be better if your friends and family are not on it. However, the very fact that we are differentiating between products based on their privacy policies is heartening. Even if mass migration away from WhatsApp is a losing battle, these are terms and conditions that I will gladly accept.

The writer is a policy analyst working on emerging technologies. He tweets at @thesethist.

Tech-Tonic is a monthly look-in at all the happenings around the digital world, both big and small.