Is it because of reliance on the network to provide these features?
I used ICQ decades ago and I could back up everything and move it to a different computer, I can still search the message archives to this day, and there weren't these silly artificial limits. Why has chat regressed?
It seems that this is still a primary device that the replica devices connect to. So if your primary is offline, out of battery or broken your other device are still useless. Not proper multi-device support.
This isn't completely true, while linked devices probably can't do everything, they do act as independent message endpoints. Messages fan out sender-side, are encrypted and sent separately to each device of the recipient [1].
https://archive.ph/x01wt
But I found this link more informative: https://signal.org/blog/linked-devices-and-android-tablets/
Why the limitations?
- only 45 days of media
- link lost if inactive for 30 / 45 days
- max 5 devices
Is it because of reliance on the network to provide these features?
I used ICQ decades ago and I could back up everything and move it to a different computer, I can still search the message archives to this day, and there weren't these silly artificial limits. Why has chat regressed?
It seems that this is still a primary device that the replica devices connect to. So if your primary is offline, out of battery or broken your other device are still useless. Not proper multi-device support.
This isn't completely true, while linked devices probably can't do everything, they do act as independent message endpoints. Messages fan out sender-side, are encrypted and sent separately to each device of the recipient [1].
[1] https://github.com/signalapp/Signal-Android/blob/9b2c2ed66d8...