I find it interesting how many business models and ideas are obsolete if there was a wider and easier adoption of gpg. It's over two decades old, but not aged in a bad way. I wonder why it isn't integrated better in OS-es, or part of education, as it's such a useful tool. I get why these products pop up, because they solve the initial inertia and make it accessible. Maybe it's OSS licensing, maybe US laws regarding crypto, hm. Does anyone have thoughts on this?

Edit: my ability to communicate seems to be pretty bad today, so let me clarify. The question is about enhancement/integration in terms of usability, and not lack of adoption "as is". I'm well aware that the reason why it's not more adopted is because it isn't easy to use, otherwise these services wouldn't be popping up that makes it more user friendly. Hence the "... obsolete if there was a wider and easier adoption of gpg"

I have thoughts. It's very similar to why dropbox is a thing. In the original Show HN for Dropbox, the top comment assured the founder that it could easily be replaced with sshfs and a version control system. For some reason, the average consumer found Dropbox easier to use.

okamiueru

I mean, I'm not asking why something easy to use is used more than something not easy to use. That would be silly. Maybe someone thought that, and that's why I got downvoted? What you've replied can be reduced to "because it's easier to use". These are not the thoughts I'm after, so let me clarify / reiterate.

I'm asking why a highly usable technology that has been in existence for two decades has not found its way into a accessible easy to use implementation. Seemed like an interesting thing to get an opinion on, but I also don't care enough to offend anyone.

jsmeaton

https://latacora.micro.blog/2019/07/16/the-pgp-problem.html Is a pretty good tear down of pgp. It doesn’t sound like pgp can be made more usable.

okamiueru

That was a very interesting read, and covers all the issues I had with GPG/PGP broken down on a per-use-case basis, which is really neat. Fairly up-to-date too (aside from maybe WhatsApp mentioned alongside Signal). In any case, thanks for sharing! Nice to see simplified and somewhat modernized tools like (https://github.com/str4d/rage) and (https://github.com/FiloSottile/age)

The article that post mentions in the beginning also had some interesting perspectives, though a bit older.

https://blog.cryptographyengineering.com/2014/08/13/whats-ma...