In XMPP, e2e encryption (just like everything else) is an optional extension. So in practice half the clients don’t support e2ee, half support different version of e2ee (can’t talk to each other) and pretty much all e2ee are likely full of holes since there are too many implementations to review.

In Matrix, e2ee is in a library that all clients can use, so while it is not Signal, it provides decent security.

The will federate, try their best to suck as many users from fediverse as possible into threads, then defederate and become a walled garden again.

As for how they will suck users away:

• Make their algorithms prefer posts from threads, so anyone wanting to reach a wider audience needs to move to threads
• Add twitter like checkmarks that are only available for users of threads (they will say it is for security since they need to verify the idwntity of checkmarked people)
• Add features that are not exposed on activity pub, so that you have to be on threads to use them (twitter did the same by for example not making polls available over API)
• Intentionally make their activity pub slow and unreliable to make it look like other instances are broken and threads is fast and reliable.
• Probably much more

No, I also wouldn’t compare them if the post and the comment above did not mention Signal. Anyway, I can still make the point that worse ease of use is more difficult to sell.

Honestly, I still have more hope for Signal compared to Lemmy/fediverse. As much as I like it here, Signal is just so much more user-friendly and explainable. I am also slowly making people around me set it up.