So @simonb is leaving us 
ā¦
ā¦ But heās off to a company called Sphere:
While weāre trying to absorb the news, I thought it might be interesting to have a place to talk all things Sphere.
First things first, letās do the basics: what is it?! My google-foo is failing me!
They may learn that having a company name as a widely used word will be to their detriment! 
I found this on the App Store: https://apps.apple.com/gb/app/sphere-group-chat/id1488310384
Google is more intelligent now, but I remember the days when it was very difficult to use a search engine to search for The The 
Slack for the masses?
If they deliver find something with the appeal of WhatsApp but with more focus on groups and social then I think they might be onto a winner.
Simonās valedictory says that theyāre currently in stealth. Maybe a more memorable / googlable (sic?) name would be part of coming out?
Maybe.
But Discord isnāt mainstream (I doubt very few families would have heard of Discord, let alone move their family WhatsApp groups there) and Facebook (and WhatsApp by extension) is still suffering by reputation.
I think itās a slim gap, but there might just be a market for a simple, go-to, app that replaces WhatsApp in our public conscious - albeit with 2020 features. Zoom-like video maybe?
Iām fascinated to see what happens next!
I always bang the drum for Signal, but with little effect among those I know:
The only people I know who use it are teenagers who donāt āgram
There are so many good chat apps that havenāt broken the mainstream because people stick with what they know (Facebook, Twitter, WhatsApp etc).
Itās almost like social media at this point. Despite the existing apps/services being routinely panned, there just isnāt enough traction to get another one off the ground.
See this is what I find fascinating. It might seem like that to you now, but things evolve and change very quickly. Who could have predicted the rise of WhatsApp?
And to your āobjectively betterā point. Weāve seen that in fintech, with different banks claimed to be āobjectively betterā - but that depends on your perspective and what your value. And most importantly, it doesnāt seem to matter. Thereās an emotional connection with some apps and services that powers them through, even if others have functions that they lack. I think this is whatās exciting about Simonās role: he gets that and will be working very hard on it. So Sphere doesnāt need to be objectively the best, just something a little different to give them an attack vector and an emotional connection from a critical mass.
Donāt get me wrong, Iām not suggesting for a minute that itās a sure fire next big thing. Iām just looking for theoretical futures. And I donāt think itās as bleak as you suggest.
Interesting times to see what happens though!
Product market fit is also a huge issue. So many companies have launched with a good idea but it doesnāt necessarily fit a demand
Far too early to see what PMF Sphere have identified
On first glance, it looks like @simonb has taken a big gamble, because, letās be realistic, they donāt have a product nor will they ever become big off of what we know about the company. However, I suspect Simon knows more of their plans and roadmap than we do and has decided it is worth the risk.
But whatever happens with Sphere, Iām sure Simon will be in demand with other companies.
I would really love a chat app that takes security seriously and doesnt use my messages to target me with ads.
Basically what whatsapp offered before it was purchased by facebook.
If they can give me that ill be all for it
Their privacy policy isnāt encouraging, in that regard. Not E2E encrypted, and all indexed by AI.
Correct me if I am wrong but Signal does exactly that 
They explain their policy well but I wonāt be signing up. Theyāre basically admitting theyāre data mining personalised information. I also think they need to run it past a GDPR expert
You guys are doing a great job of demonstrating the accuracy of something I said earlier 
No need to pay, Signal is freeā¦
Itās very hard to break the inertia of community and reputation. So there are at least two video streaming apps availableā¦ jitsi which is free and zoom which is paid and has a history of security issues (Iām ignoring hangouts here largely because google ignore it, and there are probably others I havenāt heard of).
Everyone went for zoom because everyone else went for zoom. Then the security issues became well known andā¦ people still went for zoom.
Every time we hear something bad about facebook it has 0 effect because nobody even remembers there are other places to go any more.
Chat is the sameā¦ Even free ones canāt break inā¦ Signal, Telegramā¦ heck, even IRC is still out thereā¦ but use is minimal because for most people theyāre talking on FB Messenger (which is actually a signal implementation) or WhatsApp.
Thatās not to say disruption canāt happen - weāre sat here on a discourse server which became the dominant board software after years of phpbb and vbulletin being the top dog. But itās rare, and 99% of the people who think their software is going to be the one to cause it, are wrong.
I believe this will be Simon in his new role!
