The last line of OP:
"The built-in websocket support is another key feature for me since it lets me to provide a web client just by serving some static files (I use Gamja for this)."
My fam chat is currently on Telegram, but there recently (Durov's arrest) was a long discussion about that; everyone is actually interested in switching to something E2EE and/or self-hosted. But we want to keep the core features: share photos/videos, keep a history, 1-on-1 voice/video calls, etc. So the main alternatives are WhatsApp, and (distant second) Signal - the latter doesn't offer history for newly joining devices.
If self-hosting in general wasn't such a PITA, I'd probably research the options and set something up. But honestly, I'm burnt out with trying to maintain even the most basic setups. I have a Raspberry Pi with NixOS under my desk that hosts Miniflux over Tailscale, and I can forget it exists 99.7% of the time - until I accidentally unplug it, and 6 hours later, wonder wtf happened again.
Now multiply the problem by the average funny cat video size and crappiness of my residential uplink. Won't happen.
This is not a feature, this is a limitation. It would've been a feature if Signal offered you a choice of whether the history should be synced up or not (perhaps with a default of "no" for existing users, to maintain the established expectation). As it is, this is a limitation.
In order for Signal to provide this history, said history would have to be stored on their servers, massively nerfing one of their core competitive advantages.
This “limitation” is the ultimate advantage from the perspective of Signal’s core competency.
It could be saved on devices and supplied as needed from that device history. They wouldn’t need to keep it on their servers. I don’t think you can fault signal for not wanting to do that, but it also means signal is a terrible communications platform if you want that sort of thing.
> It could be saved on devices and supplied as needed from that device history.
Then what if a new person joined the group convo? Do they have a right to see everything that everyone has said in that group convo, right back to the beginning? What if someone objects to sharing past conversations? What if sharing past conversations is a legitimate security concern to the group?
How does one filter out those past statements by someone who doesn’t want to share past statements? With security-state and foreign-state moles being a rather big issue in some groups, this is a legitimate rabbit’s hole that needs addressing. Some companies that standardize on Signal may not want any prior convos to become available to new entrants.
Personally, I see the lack of history to be a very real competitive advantage, and not any sort of a nerf.
Sure, your own history can be shared between installs on devices that you yourself own. But that is your chat history, meant for only you.
Does Signal, in fact, enjoy any competitive advantages?
Where I live (Canada) only a single person I know uses Signal. Everyone else is on Whatsapp and/or iMessage. As far as I am concerned, Signal is a wasteland.
I have received 400% more spam on Signal than I have received real messages.
Probably that they don't bother to have another chat app just for a few people.
A older family member has WhatsUp and Signal and gets sometimes confused. I have WhatsUp, signal, telegram, discord, meta messenger and would be .. hesitant to install an IRC client for like 3 people.
The reason that most people don't want another chat app is not just because of the initial work. Every chat app adds a mental overhead for some activities.
Want to find that recipe that you remember that some person shared with you a while back? Now you have to look through four different apps.
And the overhead grows quite fast as you add apps.
Yes. People install a handful of known apps and that's it. You would never convince any of my friends or family to install this. In fact, I wouldn't either.
Although I understand your point, and certainly have some friends that would feel like they're hacking the gibson connecting to an irc server, is Discord et. al really that much different?
It’s an inertia issue. I already have iMessage, FB Messenger, WhatsApp, and Signal as “primary” messaging apps, plus Instagram and LinkedIn and Teams as secondary— my tolerance would be basically zero for installing something else to connect with a specific person or friend group.
That is because you already have an absurd lots of them though.
I have whatsapp and conversations and that's it. I only use teams on my professional computer, you will never see me install "work" on my personal smartphone and nobody needs a linkedin app, the website is enough.
iMessage is needed for texting, Messenger for neighbours and FB Marketplace, WhatsApp for group chats, and Signal to have a non-meta option.
I agree about LinkedIn and will probably get rid of it; I mostly installed it as I was going to a conference and wanted the easy option for swapping contact details using camera codes.
Yes, they just download the app and enter the server name, username and pw. It's a private server and I manage the accounts so there is no registration step. And they only need to worry about any of this when they get a new phone.
