[jcla1]

I never really got the point of (digital) self destructing messages, since the reader can easily just copy the text/data, i.e. destruct only means not available anymore after future point in time. So you're just relying on the receiver of the message to follow protocol -- as always.

[afroboy]

I use it a lot with my friends (Signal) when speaking in very sensitive subjects instead of deleting messages manually you just make sure that messages will not be available after a specific time so you are safe if someone hacked your phone. and yes it's very useful if both parties agreed to it. is not security against the one who are chatting with but the one who might access your data one day.

[blowski]

I hadn’t thought of it that way. I guess it’s like shredding mail is completely normal, but in a digital world we’ve become accustomed to the idea that you keep every single letter forever.

[pydry]

Current reader and future reader are different people. Spouses get divorced, business partners fall out, friends lose touch, etc.

There is also value in a message that the reader would have to knowingly and immediately violate the writer's trust in order to keep.

[exo762]

It protects you from negligence, not malice of your conversation partner. There is an obvious design trade-off since people might use this feature in a wrong setting.

[pharmakom]

Imagine two parties trust each other to have the right intentions but imperfect endpoint security. If they send private data to each other, isn’t it better for messages to expire after a useful window in case either is compromised in the future? Same reason we have expiring JWTs

[jassra]

Not exactly the case always, in this case atleast there is an effort from the source side to remove it from its end.