Improbably enough - the vast majority of my circle uses Signal. But even with different ingredients, the expected result is the same - a move off mainstream cellular isolates my phone off of a popular, and in this case, a decently secure, messaging app.
I’m playing with Matrix but my goodness, getting my friends and family to consider moving to Signal was hard enough. I think had a fairly decent success rate. And I’m not sure I have any more currency of that type left.
I am not aware of a mobile messenger app that I would like. Most are either proprietary and/or not available for open platforms like PureOS or UBPorts. Hence I still use SMS text messages.
In addition, my phone most of the time has no mobile data connection. This is because I have Wifi at home and in the office. When on the road, the car has an internet connection and a browser.
On the notebook, there are a bunch of nice platforms such as ZeroNet, Tox or Twister, but convincing non technical people to use them is difficult. Hence I still use eMail for most things, but at least some friends use GPG.
Okay. Just for your information “still” using SMS with friends and family was never an option for me. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
I switched the bank, when they only supported SMS for 2FA.
To be fair, the title of this thread says “what do you use?” but it seems your question is “what should I use?”
No. For me the title “what do you use?” is the correct one. According to SimilarWeb only a quarter of the site’s visitors are Americans so I rightfully expected more diversity in the answers from “I still use SMS.”
If your social circle is extended enough you will end up using your country’s default app (that is Messenger or WhatsApp for most people), period. An updated version of the title could sound like “how do you use your country’s default Big Brother messaging app (on your Librem 5 smartphone/in a reasonably private fashion)?”
I daresay most of the (active) forum users are American, at the very least within this thread. Regardless, “SMS” is a valid answer. I’m not trying to start an argument, it just appears that the question you’ve posed hasn’t elicited the information you’re looking for.
But now that I re-read and think about it, it seems the readers here are confusing “messaging app” with “method of sending messages.” That wouldn’t be your fault. And to actually answer your question, I use telegram, though I understand that might be less than desirable because it wants a phone number. But it does work on linux and has a web interface.
For clarification most of the world don’t use and never used SMS for chatting to the extent Americans use it for the simple reason that sending one message in the average plan may cost as much as a minute of talk.
As an American, I do not know anybody that uses WhatsApp nor Messenger. Everyone I talk to (family and friends even coworkers) all use SMS.
Our phone plans generally come with free talk/text, at least that’s what I tend to use because I do text through sms a lot.
I’m aware. But it seems to mean you won’t get acceptable answers from us Yanks.
I think most American plans now have unlimited texting. SMS is my fallback for friends not on Signal or Matrix.
My personal preference - family and a couple of friends are on Matrix. If not that, some are on Signal. For the “What’s App”/etc friends of mine, we fall back on SMS. It is not encrypted, but for all of us, it is free.
I get that you on the whole use SMS (meanwhile your iPhone friends consider you poor in the process, only in America, LOL).
But yeah. I was a little more curious about the other 75%, non-Americans’ preferences, use scenarios, and anecdotes.
For what it’s worth I read “what channels” as communication channels/methods which I wouldn’t limit to “apps”. Sure the only examples in the post were messaging apps, but why would email/IRC not qualify as a communication channel?
For what its worth you’re the only one I’ve seen throwing this insult around. Everyone I know with an iPhone doesn’t care if anyone else uses one or not because the messages they receive show up in iMessage so they don’t care…
Then why not have clarified that you wanted to suppress what you perceived to be a minority in the beginning? Or better yet not complain about the Americans that are sharing this information since it may be useful to others that find this thread?
Meaning, say when you meet up with someone, “sorry, I am late by 10 minutes.” Sure, you can email with your friends from your computer but in a mobile scenario messaging is simply more convenient.
I’m sorry if you’ve found your fellow countryman, Moses Storm’s humor insulting. As I understand he is liberal, progressive, and all that (meaning he shouldn’t sound insulting to most people). I like his humor. I’ve only heard about your country’s culture, so what do I know?
Maybe you didn’t get my full context. By all means, please share your texting use scenarios and anecdotes from an American standpoint - especially if you can add anything new to what has already been said before.
I didnt take anything you said as offensive or even insulting, I was just seeking clarification for all. @OpojOJirYAIG I appreciate the backup, but there was no harm done. All is well here
my only gripe with classic-voice/sms on the cellular carrier network is that i can’t pre-pay and get an activation validity on a whole year … that is … it expires after 30 days if it’s not consumed
this constant monthly rearming is something that could be avoided if they wanted to …
If that’s your biggest gripe with it. I assume it must be only the case in your country because it clearly isn’t the case in my country. 
So if this is truly your biggest gripe with classic voice/SMS on the carrier network, I bet your easiest solution is to move to a country where you can prepay a whole year of service.
I forgot to add the downside. In countries where you can customarily prepay a year of voice/SMS service no one uses SMS for chat. Voice - yes, but SMS - no (because it’s expensive). You have to resort to Messenger or WhatsApp to your messaging needs (in most places). Refer to the map in the OP. But on your Liberm 5 phone or while maintaining your privacy? We ran full circle.