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Comment by Loic | Hacker News Reader

The status is definitely something people using WhatsApp are missing on Signal. This is a very easy, low engagement, no pressure way to publish news to friends and family.

What I really like about it is that you are not forced to look at the status of people, you as a consumer of the published status retrieve/pull them only when you want.

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Interesting. I wonder if it's a regional thing. Not one of my contacts or any age group uses statuses. They're left on default. The last time I remember setting a chat status was using MSN as a teenager to share my favourite song.

Mind sharing an example of something you've used it for?

Not OP, but I use WhatsApp statuses frequently. You can set privacy settings down to individual people.

Most of my statuses are photos I take from my phone, when I'm out cycling, making some food, or even a link to an article in find interesting. I like that they are removed after 24 hours, and no pressure to edit the photos beyond simple filters. No pressure like when you post a photo on Instagram.

For anyone who might be confused: WhatsApp's statuses are similar to SnapChat/Instagram stories and Twitter fleets. This is different than the online/away/etc status feature in older chat apps that was text only and usually persisted until it was changed to something else

Sorry for the confusion, I was thinking about the pictures one can share as "status", not the status string which effectively is not used at all around me (I am in Germany).

I agree on the pressure part. I promoted Signal within my extended family extended a couple of days ago, no response, but one or two did move. I wanted to try again, but was worried about not getting any responses once again. Statuses can be a great fit here. It's more like my blog where I can publish content without the pressure of others not reading it, modify as necessary and take down as necessary.

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