Most people simply lack the technical basis to understand the security implications of sms. And for Signal to be a secure messaging system by default SMS needs to be removed.
Most people simply lack the technical basis to understand the security implications of sms. And for Signal to be a secure messaging system by default SMS needs to be removed.
Signal's primary feature is encrypted messaging. You don't get it without at least seeing the word "encrypted" somewhere.
My point is that all of this is orthogonal to whether Signal can successfully make UI show users when they are sending encrypted messages vs unencrypted SMS.
Most of the confusion you are citing is about whether an app does encryption or not, and that is a totally distinct problem domain.
Firstly, the messaging decision is presented to the user before an action (send SMS/Signal). It's capable of blocking and takes place as part of an active use flow where the user is trying to complete a task. With browsers, the differentiation in UI is displayed after a user action. It doesn't block and the user doesn't require interaction to achieve any goal. Why on earth should they pay any attention to it?
Secondly, the UX for messaging is an equivalent paths binary decision: you're asking people to choose A or B. There isn't an inherent default so a user doesn't start out with a bias toward one or the other. They can easily be required to read to proceed.
With browsers it's a yes/no binary decision: the default (yes) is insecure (for an insecure website). It requires no action from the user. The secure option (no, leave) asks the user to do something. It's a choice between inaction (insecure) or action (secure). That's heavily stacked.
Lastly, even the context surrounding the apps themselves is incomparably different. One is a security upgrade of an application everyone's been using for decades (often unknowingly; "the icon for the internet"). The other is an app people consciously download and install explicitly for security reasons (regardless of whether they understand those security reasons it's at least the motivating factor).