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> Sharing metadata with Facebook will be WhatsApp's undoing, mark my words. It pains me to say this, but almost nobody cares. Many people don't even know that

by hiq 9y ago

> Sharing metadata with Facebook will be WhatsApp's undoing, mark my words. It pains me to say this, but almost nobody cares. Many people don't even know that Facebook owns WhatsApp. Most people don't care about how privacy-intrusive Messenger (or whatever Facebook's chat app is called nowadays) is, and WhatsApp is less intrusive than that (at least the data is e2e encrypted). I don't see any undoing in sight, unless the competition steps its game up a whole lot.

newscracker 9y ago
> I don't see any undoing in sight, unless the competition steps its game up a whole lot. Due to network effects, competitors can't really have a big impact on reducing WhatsApp usage unless something scandalous and hugely worrisome (to the general public) happens with WhatsApp, which then causes many people to ditch it. I don't use WhatsApp because it's owned by Facebook. So my following comments here should be taken with a pinch of salt. Telegram, which I do use, has been on a rapid pace of development for at least a few years now. If I had to guess, I'd say that Telegram likely provides a much faster, better and richer experience compared to WhatsApp. Just a few features that come to my mind on Telegram that I like and value - username (no need to reveal one's phone number to others), @replies to tag users, cross platform/OS and cross device sync, great search (global as well as within a conversation), and message editing and deletion after sending. Telegram also has bots, money transfer and other features. I'm aware of the comparative security related weaknesses in Telegram, but other ones (like Signal and Wire, more so Signal) that are better on the security front have a long way to go to catch up with Telegram on reliability, features and UX.
- mercer 9y ago
  Telegram has become more and more popular in my network, and part of what makes it work is that for the most part it doesn't really complicate things too much to use both WhatsApp and Telegram. It's not ideal, but largely frictionless. The one issue I have with Telegram is that starting at least six months ago there can be a huge delay in message delivery. Sometimes easily half an hour after a message was sent. Does anyone else have this experience? Only thing I can think of other than Telegram just getting worse in this regard is that perhaps they 'punished' me because I've been experimenting with bots. It's almost enough to make me stop using it though, as push (or near-instant) message delivery is rather important...
  - newscracker 9y ago
    > The one issue I have with Telegram is that starting at least six months ago there can be a huge delay in message delivery. Sometimes easily half an hour after a message was sent. Does anyone else have this experience? I haven't experienced such long delays with Telegram. It takes a few seconds, though I will admit that message delivery seems to have slowed down compared to how it was a few years ago.

by hiq 9y ago

newscracker 9y ago

> I don't see any undoing in sight, unless the competition steps its game up a whole lot. Due to network effects, competitors can't really have a big impact on reducing WhatsApp usage unless something scandalous and hugely worrisome (to the general public) happens with WhatsApp, which then causes many people to ditch it. I don't use WhatsApp because it's owned by Facebook. So my following comments here should be taken with a pinch of salt. Telegram, which I do use, has been on a rapid pace of development for at least a few years now. If I had to guess, I'd say that Telegram likely provides a much faster, better and richer experience compared to WhatsApp. Just a few features that come to my mind on Telegram that I like and value - username (no need to reveal one's phone number to others), @replies to tag users, cross platform/OS and cross device sync, great search (global as well as within a conversation), and message editing and deletion after sending. Telegram also has bots, money transfer and other features. I'm aware of the comparative security related weaknesses in Telegram, but other ones (like Signal and Wire, more so Signal) that are better on the security front have a long way to go to catch up with Telegram on reliability, features and UX.

mercer 9y ago
Telegram has become more and more popular in my network, and part of what makes it work is that for the most part it doesn't really complicate things too much to use both WhatsApp and Telegram. It's not ideal, but largely frictionless. The one issue I have with Telegram is that starting at least six months ago there can be a huge delay in message delivery. Sometimes easily half an hour after a message was sent. Does anyone else have this experience? Only thing I can think of other than Telegram just getting worse in this regard is that perhaps they 'punished' me because I've been experimenting with bots. It's almost enough to make me stop using it though, as push (or near-instant) message delivery is rather important...
- newscracker 9y ago
  > The one issue I have with Telegram is that starting at least six months ago there can be a huge delay in message delivery. Sometimes easily half an hour after a message was sent. Does anyone else have this experience? I haven't experienced such long delays with Telegram. It takes a few seconds, though I will admit that message delivery seems to have slowed down compared to how it was a few years ago.