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544 points josh2600 | 1 comments | | HN request time: 0.205s | source
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RL_Quine ◴[] No.26714582[source]
This is garbage, and shouldn't be part of Signal.

Everything on the internet is being corrupted with adding cryptocurrency scams where they absolutely don't belong, it turns Signal from an obvious recommendation into something that makes me hesitate. There's something to be said for focusing on doing one thing well, and that doesn't mean turning a communication platform into a kitchen sink.

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TheCraiggers ◴[] No.26714678[source]
Signal is competing against some big players in the messaging space, at least some of which have money transfers. As long as they abide by their principles and none of these features impact privacy, I don't see how it wouldn't be viewed as a win.

A case could be made for it being bloat, but most consumers don't care, and for Signal (or any messaging app) to be successful, it needs to appeal to the common denominator.

And frankly, if this means I can send money to a friend without Google getting yet more data about me, then even better.

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1. Slartie ◴[] No.26722563[source]
But they're not adding a "money" transfer option, they're adding a "MobileCoin" transfer option! For the overwhelming part of society, these are not interchangeable terms.

When people want to send "money" to other people, they usually imply that they want to send units of the local currency, like USD or EUR. And they usually imply that the value of these units should stay the same during transfer. If I want to pay my share of a restaurant visit to my friend who covered the check, I'd like the 30$ I'm sending to still hold enough value when they arrive in his bank account to actually cover my share. A cryptocurrency intermediate that swings +/- 20% in value within minutes (and that we both have to pay conversion fees in order to acquire/redeem for $) is of exactly no use at all for such a use case.