TBH, I was incredibly disappointed when I discovered that BB shared the same encryption key for all users unless you were on their enterprise system. While I’m just one user, I also discouraged others from buying into them too.

I have no idea how your point connects to mine. We're talking about consumers choices here.

Ensuring user privacy _from you_ can be an effective defensive measure for small companies who cannot afford to mount a meaningful legal defense.

"Here's all the data we have, officers. We don't have the keys. Good luck."

Again, how does this connect with why Whatsapp won as an app?

Consumers didn't follow this logic. At all. They went for the convenient and free option.

I'm so confused by this thread. It's like you guys are pasting the output of an ML model with only the input "secure" at me.

>I'm so confused by this thread. It's like you guys are pasting the output of an ML model with only the input "secure" at me.

You talked about encryption on HN. What do you expect? Might as well have brought up gun control at a Republican rally.

(Not that you were anything but 100% right. The general public didn't care about encryption at all until the Snowden leaks.)

They still don't!

I think that depends on how you define "general public". My mum doesn't, but my (far more digitally savvy) teenage cousin does.

Back in 2009, though, this was a very different story. Even tech-savvy people didn't care.

Well, FWIW, the first people I knew using WhatsApp were my friends who were drug dealers or chinese nationals, and both lauded the encryption features.

having the messages encrypted end to end also free WhatsApp from being asked to do censorship or moderating