Sphere - Acquired by Twitter 🌐

[anon75400416]

@Demmedelusive

I’m still not sure there’s a case…

If they’ve been unable to get traction with a chat app during a global pandemic when everyone moved from face-to-face to remote contact then i doubt this is going anywhere

[simonb]

@Demmedelusive

Do you yet have a better sense of market fit?

Yes Our event on Thursday will cover some ground on this regard!

With regards to market saturation and E2E, I do think it’s worth pointing out that neither Slack or Discord are E2E encrypted either, and both are products that have gained good market share in their respective fields in the last 3 years or so.

That’s a closer comparison to what we are trying to do than WhatsApp or Telegram really.

[Dan5 (Dan)]

Don’t you think lots of businesses would shy away from something that doesn’t have E2E if they’re discussing sensitive information?

It’s much easier for an organisation to control what’s said in a formal environment like Slack than in an informal environment like messaging.

I personally wouldn’t use an app that doesn’t support E2E - I like knowing that what I say to my OH and friends is private between us.

The only except is Facebook messenger which I only use to share posts on Facebook that I don’t want cluttering up my feed.

[anon75400416]

To reiterate other peoples points it is a very strange position take in 2021. Not only is Simon defending not having E2E encryption he’s even trying to say it’s a “feature”.

Perhaps the simplest explanation is that without access to all of the messages they have nothing to monetise.

[simonb]

@Dan5

Don’t you think lots of businesses

We aren’t a B2B app.

@anon75400416

Perhaps the simplest explanation is that without access to all of the messages they have nothing to monetise

I’m not sure what part of the original blog post led you to this conclusion, but I can honestly say that I’ve never heard anyone in the company float that or anything even hinting towards that.

I’m pretty sure that’s not Discord’s business strategy either, who are also not E2EE, have experienced significant growth recently, and are operating in a similar space. It’s quite the conclusion to jump to.

[DaveJ (Dave)]

The garden path just appears to be leading to an utter disaster. The more updates we get, I just can’t help the feeling I’ve had all the time that’ll be a flop. Nothing said so far had filled me with confidence in regards to privacy and security either.

[Dan5 (Dan)]

@simonb

We aren’t a B2B app.

What is the market segment then? I’d love to see it succeed, but I just don’t see where it fits in. If you’re not aiming at the business market, and you’re missing a key feature that other personal messaging apps have - then I just don’t see the pitch.

If you’re talking about book clubs and friendship groups then end to end encryption is clearly important to them. The number of my friends who aren’t in anyway tech savvy who’ve switched from what’s app to signal demonstrates that. They’d rather have the encryption than the features.

[Peter_G]

Let’s try and unpick some of this. I think there’s a genuinely interesting set of questions here which can often get hidden.

There are two big questions for society here:

1. To what extent should the police (with appropriate judicial oversight/permission) have access to everything? To use an analogy, should there be any physical spaces that - with a warrant - the police should be unable to search?

2. To what extent should we seek to limit technological progress or, arguably, make ourselves less secure because backdoors might be used by people that they weren’t intended for. To use another analogy, when is it a cat flap, and when is it a hole in the wall?

Nowhere does this play out more in the examples that Simon has cited. It’s my instinct to protect my data and to ensure I have E2E encryption, because I want privacy (and because I know that I’m not doing anything wrong). But I’m also conviced that the same technology is the same that the worst of people will use to commit crime and to cause irreparable harm and death to people.

It’s a tricky, tricky conundrum and there are no easy answers.

I do think, though, that society in general has been a bit conditioned by the behaviour of some of the big tech players. Why don’t I want to have unencrypted messages on a Facebook platform? Because I don’t trust them to not use it for purposes that I would find distasteful (probably profiling and advertising in the first instance).

So this, for me, firstly becomes an issue of trust.

Secondly, it becomes one of purpose. I’ve been playing with Sphere a bit and the best way I can find to describe it is this community, in real-time. When I use this platform I know that my messages are available publicly, that forum admins can moderate me and can (presumably) read my private messages.

I treat Sphere the same. So I could create a Fintech Polling Sphere () and invite you to it. But I’d be the moderator, like Alan is on here.

tl;dr: the ethics of this stuff is difficult - there’s no right and wrong; it’s about trust and it’s about the purpose of the platform: Sphere = Discourse, Sphere ≠ WhatsApp.

[Dan5 (Dan)]

@Peter_G

Secondly, it becomes one of purpose. I’ve been playing with Sphere a bit and the best way I can find to describe it is this community, in real-time .

I’m intrigued here - what makes it more real-time than this community? If I’ve got notifications enabled (which I do on my Mac) for topics I’m interested in and have posted in - how is that less real-time than Sphere?

[lpoolrob (Rob)]

@simonb

With regards to market saturation and E2E, I do think it’s worth pointing out that neither Slack

@Dan5

Don’t you think lots of businesses would shy away from something that doesn’t have E2E if they’re discussing sensitive information?

@simonb

We aren’t a B2B app.

Then Slack has no relevance then to the discussion surely?!

[robsug]

This community even has typing indicators. Seems pretty realtime to me

[Peter_G]

@Dan5

how is that less real-time than Sphere?

Functionally, I suppose very little. It’s probably more about the user interface - Sphere encourages live and flowing chat (and feels a bit like WhatsApp). Discourse encourages structured conversation, with set topics and people like me encouraged to move posts to keep things tidy. This feels more structured and more classic forum/bulletin board. (No value judgement implied in that by the way).

[Dan5 (Dan)]

@lpoolrob

Then Slack has no relevance then to the discussion surely?!

I think the logic(?) is that some groups use the free slack plan for discussion (isn’t there a not Monzo, Monzo slack?), but I’m not convinced that the idea for sphere really fits that purpose.

[Dan5 (Dan)]

I guess I’m just struggling to see the middle ground that Sphere is trying to find between the two.

That said I’m most likely too old for their target market so that probably isn’t a surprise

[anon75400416]

@Peter_G

I’ve been playing with Sphere a bit and the best way I can find to describe it is this community, in real-time .

So discord then?

[Peter_G]

@Dan5

some groups use the free slack plan for discussion (isn’t there a not Monzo, Monzo slack?)

I think that’s the logic. I suppose the question is why are they a thing, if we have this forum? If it’s because of a need for “live” chat then that would seem to support Simon’s hypothesis. If it’s because of something else, it would seem not to.

[lpoolrob (Rob)]

True, but then we are in the sphere (see what I did there ) of using a tool for something which it was not designed for, so I don’t think it is fair to include it as an example. Everything about Slack is business orientated (including their marketing).

[Peter_G]

I’m ashamed to say I’ve never used Discord

[Dan5 (Dan)]

I mean I use this community in lieu of a social life so I can’t disagree with you on that point

[Peter_G]

@Dan5

I guess I’m just struggling to see the middle ground that Sphere is trying to find between the two

Yeah I struggled a bit with that, too. I think there’s the kernel of an excellent idea in there, but it’s a product that will feel its way through, evolve and find its niche over time.

(Personal view, but I’ve long given up taking what startups think they’ll be as gospel. Things change, pivots happen, folk get feedback, stumble over better ideas etc).