- The encrypted messaging service Signal won’t replace WhatsApp, the cofounder of both apps predicted.
- Downloads of Signal have skyrocketed since WhatsApp announced it would make users share some personal data with its parent company, Facebook.
- Brian Acton, the executive chairman of the Signal Foundation, said there was room for both apps. “I have no desire to do all the things that WhatsApp does,” he told TechCrunch.
- He said he expected people to rely on Signal to talk to family and close friends while continuing to talk to other people via WhatsApp.
- Acton cofounded WhatsApp and then sold it to Facebook for $22 billion in 2014. He left the company in 2017.
Downloads of the encrypted messaging app Signal have skyrocketed since WhatsApp, a rival service, announced it would make users share some personal data with its parent company, Facebook.
But Signal won’t replace WhatsApp, the cofounder of both apps predicted.
The two apps have different purposes, Brian Acton told TechCrunch on Tuesday .Acton is the executive chairman of the Signal Foundation, which he cofounded after leaving WhatsApp in 2017. Acton also confounded Whatsapp and then sold it to Facebook for $22 billion in 2014.
Advertisement”I have no desire to do all the things that WhatsApp does,” Acton said, though he didn’t specify which WhatsApp features he wouldn’t replicate.
He said he expected people to rely on Signal to talk to family and close friends while continuing to talk to other people on WhatsApp.
“My desire is to give people a choice,” Acton told the publication, adding that “it’s not strictly a winner-take-all scenario.”( Busines Insider )
