this post was submitted on 28 Aug 2024
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Privacy
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Because Signal is awesome and the gold standard for privacy
That is not the reason: Signai is very good but it's not the best. The reason why it's more popular is because it's good, ubiquitous and easy to install.
In other words, it's a well-known app you can confidently tell your computer idiot friends and family to install on their phone and start communicating with them 5 minutes later. What's what makes it popular.
Signal is nowhere close to being popular.
Telegram has almost 1 billion users, which is why governments are unhappy with it. Signal is a niche toy for a very small number of people.
I think it may depend on where you are. Back when Whatsapp went belly up, myself, my entire family, and every other person I know IRL switched over to signal within a week, so I think it may be more popular than you expect, though still not as popular as Telegram as you noted.
They don't even bother reporting Signal usage, it's a round off error: https://www.statista.com/statistics/258749/most-popular-global-mobile-messenger-apps/
Telegram has almost 1 billion users, half as many as WhatsApp