[jimkleiber]

I really like the perspective you bring to this, especially this part:

> So, with all of this hassle in mind, I'm not going to tell people who, bluntly put, are at risk of being lonely, to drop useful social tools.

I think I'm playing a lot with the metaphor of Facebook or other internet properties as cities or countries—as locations where people exist and root. Similar to you, I have struggled to get people to leave the FB "city" or the iMessage "city" to follow me to the Signal "city." They may occasionally visit me on Signal but prefer to reside in iMessage or another place.

And then I feel bad asking them to move to Signal "city," as there aren't too many residents at the moment and not many whom they may know. So to take them to a sparsely populated foreign land where they don't really speak the language/dialect (different UI) can make me feel worried that it may disconnect them from the few connections they have back "home."

Anyways, thank you for sharing about your experience and inspiring me to explore this metaphor more deeply.