muaveriWhy you might not want to use whatsapp anymore
… & gold endorsement of whatsapp cofounder Brian Acton saying : “I am a sellout. I acknowledge that.” & donating $50M for Signal Foundation
WhatsApp cofounder: “I am a sellout. I acknowledge that.”
The messaging app was purchased by Facebook in 2014 for a whopping $22 billion. But since the purchase of WhatsApp, cofounders Brian Acton and Jan Koum have had a string of disagreements with Facebook’s upper management over its insistence on monetizing users and their data. Ultimately the differences led both founders to leave the company—a…
JesterRaiinAnd lose the ability to interact with all those people that won’t be convinced to switch to less of a software gore?
Yeah, definitely great idea, so rebel & stuff…
You should read about EU’s proposed law DMA. It aims to solve this problem of not being able to contact friends if you uninstall WhatsApp (or any other app). The link explains it better lol
Sir_Osis_of_LiverWeak sauce. If they value you, they'll get in touch. If they don't, they never cared in the first place so what does it matter?
What if I’m already not using it?
Walter_Egowhat if love isn’t enough?
What if love? Baby don’t hurt me
What if gamora?
Then probably a lot of cutting and slashing
I haven’t used it since it was purchased by Facebook.
I seem to remember that the former owner of Whatsapp recommended people NOT use it after he sold it to Zuck.
1chemistdownHe financed Signal app after walking away from meta and an addition 3/4 of a billion or something like that. He publicly stated that they’re evil. When financing Signal App his one stipulation was don’t do that
I used it to talk to a girl I met in Europe that lived in Croatia. When we stopped talking, I stopped using it.
I had more friends and family urging me to get on Facebook messenger more than anything else, until iMessage really took off then it reverted to sms on my end.
Yeah, the Meta logo on the commercial was enough to keep me away from this forever.
HousePantherI have a distrust of just about all things corporate. That’s reason enough for me not to use it.
Ungh, my family all uses it. So I’m kind of forced to use it only for one chat as were all far away. I seriously DON’T want it on my phone though.
NumbersCanBeFunTry to see if they are open to switching to Signal or Telegram. I got a couple people I know to switch to Signal and they have been using it since.
ForestOrcaI've been onboarding people to Signal for years now. Yay Signal!!
Told my family and friends I’ll be moving to signal, gave them about 2 months before switching and told everyone if you don’t want to install signal, you can always call or text me. Moved my entire family and all of my friends over. They all use WhatsApp as well but realised that there is no problem with using one more app
Mantis_TobogganAs someone from Latin America. FUCK!
It’s literally what everyone uses for business, family/friends groups. Don’t know if any country around here is an exception, but we started using it because greedy telecoms were charging so much money for SMS at the time. So, it was a great way to circumvent that.
Then Facebook bought it when it was already established, so it’s improbable that people will move away from it.
As someone from Latin America. FUCK!
It’s literally what everyone uses for business, family/friends groups. Don’t know if any country around here is an exception, but we started using it because greedy telecoms were charging so much money for SMS at the time. So, it was a great way to circumvent that.
Then Facebook bought it when it was already established, so it’s improbable that people will move away from it.
The article isn’t very, uh, articulate in its reasoning. Nothing here is an actual real life problem it’s all just what-ifs, and 2 billion people aren’t going to quit using it
zaphA teen in Nebraska was sentenced to 3 months in jail because Facebook turned over her “private” messages but sure, no real life problems with trusting meta with your “encrypted” messages.
I do not disagree with your basic premise and I completely disagree with the Nebraska prosecution but I think people need to understand that everything we do online it’s monitored.
If they can get the actual message data, they will use meta data (e.g. two parties sending and receiving data packets that match in size and time of occurrence and protocol and are known to each other) or whatever.
If you are doing something you are worried about other people knowing about, do not use any digital form of communication. Full stop. There is no privacy online.
You’re absolutely right, there’s no privacy online. But there are significantly better alternatives that offer end to end encryption and sometimes digital communication is required.
Yes, I agree, for example credit card transaction processing or business communication with trade secrets in it. For most people doing things they want kept private but which is not illegal, basic encryption is great.
If I were going to plot the overthrow of a government, I’d try to as much as possible offline.
That was Facebook Messenger too, completely different app and problem, not that Whatsapp isnt better or worse.
I used it as an example because they’re both owned by meta and make similar promises on privacy and encryption.
If you wanted something unforgivable Whatsapp is proprietary software and thus restricts your freedom. Using nonfree software is an abuse in of itself.
driving_croonerAt least Telegram is there for the porn.
OldFartPhilThis is one of those times when I’m glad we Luddites in the US still use mostly SMS/MMS. I have managed to avoid anything Facebook/Meta and I would have been pissed if the messaging app that all my friends and family were already using was sold to Zuck.
I think unlimited texting was a thing in the US since like early to mid 2000s. It was never the case down here (probably still isn’t, since nobody uses it).
In fact, by the time cell phones became ubiquitous down here, it was around the time smart phones were launching. So with regular SMS being expensive, everyone just started using WhatsApp. I think back in the day the app was $1.
It’s kind of fucked-up that Zuckerberg has so much power over people’s businesses, study groups, family communications, neighborhood watches, et al. He could put ads on WhatsApp tomorrow, and people will probably take it, because humans are stubborn and like familiarity in general. I could stop using it today, but I would not be able to participate in a lot of things in society.
You can see it now in Reddit and Twitter. They’ve been completely entshittified and people are still there. In fact, we got people on Lemmy wanting to brigade and participate in r/place and give engagement to that shit-sipper Spez, so he can use the metrics on his damn IPO.
I’ve seen a lot of discussion about why most of the rest of the world uses messaging apps instead of texting, so I understand. And messaging applications are objectively better in almost every way. But the threat of enshittification is always present when people choose a corporate walled garden. Hopefully some of the new EU regulations on account portability will make lock-in less of a concern.
rest of the world
Except New Zealand! Although FB Messenger is more dominant here, plenty of us still use plain old SMS, and I’m really grateful for it.
Aren’t SMS less secure though?
Yes, although I’d argue that it’s a pick your poison thing. You can use a system where the content of your texts aren’t secure, or you can let Meta add even more personal information to the dossier it has on you, your friends and the family dog.
Fair enough, it’s sad that there isn’t a popular alternative without the drawbacks of both
Sure, but it’s 10x easier to use the age-old open standard that everyone uses for general communication, that let’s be real, the powers that be probably know I’m heading to my buddy’s house before I say the “be there in 10” text. If you need to have more private conversations, there are better means for that.
Time to move to Telegram/Signal
Signal. Just signal
Its simple. Just make a discord server?
EldritchI hate to break it to you.
Not a lemmy user uncritically endorsing centralized, proprietary software. :( , be better than this please!
As someone from Latin America. FUCK!
It’s literally what everyone uses for business, family/friends groups. Don’t know if any country around here is an exception, but we started using it because greedy telecoms were charging so much money for SMS at the time. So, it was a great way to circumvent that.
Then Facebook bought it when it was already established, so it’s improbable that people will move away from it.
As someone from Latin America. FUCK!
It’s literally what everyone uses for business, family/friends groups. Don’t know if any country around here is an exception, but we started using it because greedy telecoms were charging so much money for SMS at the time. So, it was a great way to circumvent that.
Then Facebook bought it when it was already established, so it’s improbable that people will move away from it.
OverfedRaccoon 🦝As a heads up, this posted 4 times.
Yeah, my bad. Mlem is bugging out and it seemed like it didn’t post it at all.
A Mark Zuckerberg Production
VeraxusHuh, I didn't realize WhatsApp was still around.
HeartyBeastIt’s pretty much ubiquitous in the UK. Say you don’t use it and you get a very funny look
It is the default mode of text communication here. My dad insists on using normal texts and that's a bit weird...
I'm that dad, I'm afraid. The fact that the app demands full access to all contacts on your phone to work nicely is just evil. And people happily give meta the full contact details of their family, doctor, bank, boss etc. - without those people's permission. The value in the harvested social graph is huge
Fair enough, but my Dad sends normal texts because he thinks WhatsApp is too complicated to use, or just because he forgets he has it, not for any security concerns... So you're not quite the same!
noooo. please.keep boomers and the altright in their bubble. so sad to see the dumbasses leave threads so soon already. there needs to be a default platform for morons to share memes so the real world does not get polluted.
MxM111Main use of WhatsApp is SMS replacement. Has nothing to do with threads or anything like that. It is a free equivalent of messaging which is very convenient when you need to send messages abroad. What do you use for this? e-mail? Telegram? Serious question.
Signal for me personally. I'll never touch WhatsApp. If that's what you use to communicate then we do it the old fashioned way.
But why? For video calls and simple messages what’s the difference? Both use end to end encryption. The interface is clear but WhatsApp has huge advantage in number of users.
Monologuecan you really verify they use e2ee? it’s not like you can look at the source code of their client or servers, all you can do is take their word for it and there have been companies lying about having e2ee before.
plus metadata collection, sure they might not able to collect what you send but who and when you send your messages are probably collected.
But these questions are true for any app. The only one which was verified is iMessage, because of that FBI case.
not really, you can check the source code for signal’s client and server. same goes for matrix except you can even host your own matrix server. that is the difference of open source.