Applications like WhatsApp and Instagram are at the forefront of social media and communication apps but are routinely criticised for their weak privacy policies. Signal, on the other hand, in addition to end-to-end encryption, covers a suite of other privacy features such as minimal user data collection, screen-lock security, incognito keyboard and a few others. With the premium put on data security in recent times one would think that an app like Signal would be at the forefront of communication. It is not though, so why not? 

What is the market state of the signal relative to its competition?

Signal, this year, reported about 40 million active users whereas WhatsApp, the market leader in this space, boasted 2 billion users last year. Signal lags behind enormously, and it is not just because it entered the market later. It should have been able to capitalise on the blows to the WhatsApp brand due to its relatively weak privacy features. However, it hasn’t, because Signal, frankly, just is not engaging enough to generate a relatively large audience and retain them. While WhatsApp lags behind Signal in terms of privacy features, it far exceeds Signal in every other area. WhatsApp overall offers a more engaging and entertaining package overall and given its headstart over Signal, houses conversations for many personal and professional relationships. WhatsApp even has web applications that enable personal and professional workflow, something else Signal was late to develop. 

Why signal is not an addictive application

Therefore Signal is a communication application that would require group migration from the bigger communication apps in order to make sure retention of user activity is successfully accomplished. It just does not have the features to make that migration stick. Apps that allow messaging such as WhatsApp and Instagram offer so much more that they keep their users engaged more and in a myriad of ways which is something that Signal has yet to replicate and is why Signal is not addictive.