Email, docs, music, maps etc have reasonable alternatives and you don’t depend on others to switch (a gmail user will receive my email from tuta). But with WhatsApp either you conceal and use it or you just don’t talk to people (tried convincing them to switch to signal and it simply doesn’t happen)
How do you deal with it?
hard to say, I don’t use WhatsApp, i deleted it when FB bought it, yes, that long ago.
It’s a series of fallbacks. Eventually you’re calling each other on the POTS like a couple of cave-people.
I’ve only met one person who actually uses Whatsapp before and asked me to download it. My mom just asked me if I knew what it was 2 months ago because I guess it’s popular on cruises. It certainly doesn’t seem popular enough to have to deal with here at least
You’re in a lucky part of the world. In my area, Whatsapp is used a lot for sharing attachments mainly, e.g sending a photo of a receipt for claiming warranty, contacting government officials, etc. People here do understand that if I say I don’t use it, and even though they agree to use SMS and email, it still slightly annoys them as it is out of their norm. I am living by till now without Whatsapp, but it’s really difficult.
Don’t use it. Refuse to talk with anyone that says they want me to use it. It’s been working great.
Had to install and use an anonymous number that no one has for like 2 things that I was really in need to for interacting with some businesses though and for when many people were laid off in the company and that’s where I needed to find some info.
Either I use Signal only or SMS which has worked great for many years. Now with RCS it’s the same as any other internet based chat even with video calls.
I’m confused. If you want security, why do you prefer SMS to whatapp?
Either all or nothing. But for certain not contributing to the destruction of humanity by using Meta products.
It takes time. I’ve been “indoctinating” my family fo years. And that really just means reinforcing things we all, “regular” people included, know about big tech. Part of that meant straight up telling them I wouldn’t use anything other than Signal. That worked, and a few years later I now have my mom on Linux. Sometimes doing the right thing means being stubborn and putting your foot down
Edit: my parents have both become open source evangelists, and my mom has asked me more than once the difference between Free Software and oss. My parents are also both pretty conservative so it wasn’t easy to turn them. But like I said. Put your foot down. Tell them you are doing the right thing, and if it comes to it, withold tech support 😂
This inspired me
I managed to do a surprisingly good job convincing a decent chunk of my friends to move over to signal several years back and they’ve mostly stayed. I still have WhatsApp but it’s a much more secondary chat app for me now days.
I use like five different messengers for different friend groups. I wish I had the confidence and determination of my brother who singlehandedly forced my entire extended family to exclusively use Signal amongst each other He basically blackmailed them lmao but it worked and after 1 month of adjusting noone complained
you know Beeper? Might be really useful for you
I just don’t talk to what Zuckerberg refers to as “dumb fucks”
It’s seriously so self fulfilling. Markey mark made it so easy to not be a dumb fuck. It’s literal actual written instructions on how to not be a dumb fuck. Millions fail the written instructions.
TIL he calls the people that send their data to him “dumb fucks”. But I don’t get what instructions you are talking about? 🤔
Its easy. I have never used WhatsApp. I refuse to install or use any meta apps.
i patiently explain why i refuse to use it and then speak about the preferable alternatives
I have a non gms ROM (e/os) I have shelter (work profile jail), and WhatsApp is living in the jail and doesn’t see any contacts or rest of the phone… I split my comms to (beeper for all texts that I don’t care about for privacy that I can not get away from e…g LinkedIn/WhatsApp/g messenger but I have signal/briar that actually runs on the phone (non shelter). And I refuse to add them to beeper.
Everyone I talk to regularily has Signal or Discord (yes i know I would prefer Matrix or something), basically the only reason I have WhatsApp is one or two group chats I don’t read.
If Discord, why not WhatsApp?
I am aware, I’d like to not have to use either. I’m trying to convince my friends to try out Matrix, but I haven’t been successful yet.
So you would use WhatsApp if they were?
Naomi Brockwell TV on YT or Odyssey had a video about that, forgot the name. You basically make it more painful to communicate on other platforms, reward for using your preferred platform (e.g. offer tickets to a game through preferred platform).
Don’t expect people to move completely, including close friends
I find not having friends helps with this
Got my entire family on Signal.
