quokka

And Telstra can’t sell everyone’s encrypted messages if we can collectively move on from SMS.

Well we either accept this, get a movement going where we give the AI millions of deliberately false SMS to ingest, or start using a better messaging solution. Not WhatsApp or Signal.

Personally, I’ll spin up a Mastodon (or similar) instance for my kid and his mates.

You mean apps that they’d really like you pass age verification by having MyGovDigitalSurveillanceDefinitelyNotTrackingYou app?

Yep. And meanwhile the kids will be chatting/abusing in Google Docs. Or IRC servers they spin up for free in AWS or whatever. Or, shock, SMS.

offshore extremists use such platforms to communicate.

Yes, yes they do. But that is not justification for reading everyone’s messages.

as with Signal, is not really about what you’ll use, but what alternative gains traction and you can persuade your contacts to use. I hope one of the decentralised alternatives is able to rise to mainstream status.