Ask HN: How do you convince people to use privacy respecting technologies
No synthesized answer yet. Check the discussion below.
How vigilant people are about privacy will vary greatly by generation and by group interests.
This goes back to the variation by generation and group interests. People that already feel oppressed by the main platform may likely stay on the one you provided them, otherwise most will go back to whatever they and their friends liked about their main platform. Unless these people are your employees it is unlikely you would be deciding where they go. Even in that case employees will do what they can do.
Ask these people what they like about the platform they are on and decide if you can replicate or enhance that experience. If you can, show them and they will decide if what you created is something they would prefer.
(That's how I've gotten a lot of folks on Signal: "It's like PGP, but usable." The phone number thing was a hangup for a while but with the usernames feature, that's gone.)
Of all the FOSS software that has made inroads with the masses, none of it has been due to it being FOSS or the privacy. People don’t use VLC because it’s FOSS, they use it because a video file didn’t play in the player they had, and VLC played it without and fuss.
Solve problems users have. They don’t see not being FOSS as a problems. So yes, make FOSS, but don’t expect that to be your headline feature. Like it or not, very few people actually care.
Privacy is a concept, it's not even a thing.