Why are most Bitcoin groups on Telegram (and not signal, wire, etc.)?
104 sats \ 7 comments \ @jp 15 Dec 2021 bitcoin
Given Bitcoin's focus on FOSS, why is it that most Bitcoin communities are on Telegram? Both Wire and Signal are OSS (NOTE: I understand why people hate Signal for their shitcoin PR), but it seems that there isn't a more concentrated effort to adopt these OSS platforms. Any specific reason why?
Side note: definitely looking forward to what https://www.impervious.ai/ can do with encrypted communications over lightning
write
preview
related posts
47 sats \ 0 replies \ @DarthCoin 15 Dec 2021
because it's easy to post memes. Bitcoin secret weapon are memes. And Telegram is good for memes.
reply
1 sat \ 0 replies \ @LibreLoya 15 Dec 2021
Network effects
reply
1 sat \ 0 replies \ @cameri 15 Dec 2021 freebie
Doubt people choose where to set up shop based whether the underlying software is FOSS or not.
0 sats \ 0 replies \ @nout 16 Dec 2021
As a counter example - I know multiple Signal groups and some Matrix groups. Those tend to be less open, not everyone can join, etc. I'm not on Telegram, so hard to judge there :)
reply
0 sats \ 0 replies \ @DarthCoin 16 Dec 2021
On Telegram you can tip sats with @lntxbot (literally sending sats). Can you do that on other platforms? https://darthcoin.substack.com/p/lntxbot-users-guide https://darthcoin.substack.com/p/paid-content-in-telegram-with-btcln https://darthcoin.substack.com/p/hide-bitcoin-inside-nft-aka-dumb
reply
0 sats \ 1 reply \ @k00b 15 Dec 2021
Probably for the same reason Bitcoiners are on Twitter and not Mastodon - network effects and features. We have strong incentives to be principled when it comes to money - because the alternatives are failing categorically. The need to be concerned about the fate of communication platforms is mostly hypothetical today. If the alternatives to Telegram want to win, they'll have to provide incentives by being 10x better along some product dimension that users actually care about - FOSS and privacy aren't big concerns for enough people.
reply
1 sat \ 0 replies \ @mf 15 Dec 2021
I completely agree that those are without a doubt the main drivers. But it's still curious why the outcry for no-kyc and verifiable security is so big, and there's still a good amount of software used that doesn't follow those principles as much as they could.
To be fair, there is a telegram FOSS https://f-droid.org/en/packages/org.telegram.messenger/
reply