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I've been using WhatsApp without giving it contact access for a few years and it's possible but annoying. Since WhatsApp still shows you recent chats you don't

I've been using WhatsApp without giving it contact access for a few years and it's possible but annoying. Since WhatsApp still shows you recent chats you don't have to type phone numbers each time, you just select from the list of recent chats. You also get to see people's WhatsApp profile photo so it's generally possible to know who you're talking to even though their username is their phone number. This works ok for me with around a dozen frequent WhatsApp contacts but I could see it breaking down if you have more than 20 frequent contacts. > What if they previously didn’t have WhatsApp installed, but have since installed, so you also need to check again every time you want to message someone who formerly didn’t have WhatsApp. Why is this important? I use WhatsApp instead of SMS for contacts who don't have (free) SMS or who want the extra security. It's pretty intentional. Why would I want to use WhatsApp with everyone? That concept seems aligned with Facebook's goals, not mine.

tmp538394722 6y ago
> Why is this important? I use WhatsApp instead of SMS for contacts who don't have (free) SMS or who want the extra security. Because WhatsApp (and other messengers) offer a far superior messaging experience to SMS: higher fidelity media, on time delivery, delivery status, e2e, and many more. Better experience means that people actually use it. As you say, for “extra security”. But not everyone arrived at the decision of “how much security” they need at the same moment in time. People come to and leave the WA platform, and it’s desirable for me to know where people are at now so I can use e2e in new places as opposed to only with the subset of my social graph that I manually copied and pasted in which had installed WA before me. I don’t deny that you like your setup, but it sounds pretty painful and pretty unlikely to appeal to a broad swathe of people, which is essential when trying to combat mass surveillance. (is mass surveillance why you jump through these hoops?)
- ArchOversight 6y ago
  On my prepaid plan in Europe I get a lot more data for the money than I get SMS messages. Text messages cost me 10 cents per message. WhatsApp by comparison was practically free. So it is not even about superior messaging experience, it also comes down to cost.
FalconSensei 6y ago
> possible but annoying That's the thing: people (non-tech, non-privacy aware) are always trading privacy for convenience.

tmp538394722 6y ago

> Why is this important? I use WhatsApp instead of SMS for contacts who don't have (free) SMS or who want the extra security. Because WhatsApp (and other messengers) offer a far superior messaging experience to SMS: higher fidelity media, on time delivery, delivery status, e2e, and many more. Better experience means that people actually use it. As you say, for “extra security”. But not everyone arrived at the decision of “how much security” they need at the same moment in time. People come to and leave the WA platform, and it’s desirable for me to know where people are at now so I can use e2e in new places as opposed to only with the subset of my social graph that I manually copied and pasted in which had installed WA before me. I don’t deny that you like your setup, but it sounds pretty painful and pretty unlikely to appeal to a broad swathe of people, which is essential when trying to combat mass surveillance. (is mass surveillance why you jump through these hoops?)

ArchOversight 6y ago
On my prepaid plan in Europe I get a lot more data for the money than I get SMS messages. Text messages cost me 10 cents per message. WhatsApp by comparison was practically free. So it is not even about superior messaging experience, it also comes down to cost.

FalconSensei 6y ago

> possible but annoying That's the thing: people (non-tech, non-privacy aware) are always trading privacy for convenience.