Just my Whatsapp abstinence alone is costing me dearly socially. Without Telegram it would be straight to the hermitage. Very few normies use even Signal, let alone all the weird and wonderful “even more private” alternatives whose names I never bother to try to remember.

This advice is completely disconnected from the reality of anyone who has, or wants to have, a social life.

I look at it a bit differently. If I’m not important enough to my friends and family for them to install a easy to set up app, then I guess I never was that important to them.

I left facebook in 2011, lost contact with most of my school friends, army buddies etc. I left Whatsapp around 2016, lost contact with most of what was left. In my signal there’s 6 chats open. Two of them are my sisters, whom I rarely talk to. One of them is my weed dealer. The rest are friends, I guess, but even those chats haven’t been active since January 6th (I just checked) lol.

But I know I’m a bit different, I’m a bitter, miserable and grumpy man who doesn’t mind being alone. I know most of the people are not like that and would go mad without contact with other people. For me its more healthy to be away from these parasite apps and services than it is to keep up with everyone.

Uncanny. All of that is really close to my experience (I like to think I’m not bitter and miserable but I suspect you’re not either - just introverted or on the spectrum).

If I’m not important enough to my friends and family for them to install a easy to set up app, then I guess I never was that important to them.

This is the standard argument and it’s powerful. Problem is, it can easily be turned around: “if I’m not important enough for them to install this completely ubiquitous app that everybody is already using, then obviously they don’t care much about me”. Conundrum! The only way to “win” here is by playing the ethics card. But alas that argument is just not well understood by most people.

I like to think I’m not bitter and miserable but I suspect you’re not either - just introverted or on the spectrum

Perhaps I’m not bitter. I don’t know what I am. Tired, frustrated to the point of being done with everything and everyone. I’m not sure what to call it, depression is a major part of it. Introverted, for sure. I’m a introvert even in Finnish standards lol.

The only way to “win” here is by playing the ethics card. But alas that argument is just not well understood by most people.

That’s how I decided to drop Whatsapp. i explained to the people I felt I owed a explanation, that I’m not comfortable with the privacy issues and being a play button for big American corporations. They understood it, didn’t care. Meh. Fuck them, I guess lol.