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In the U.S., my experience with Whatsapp was that I created an account and never used it once to communicate with anyone, then I deleted it. I've also withdraw
by studius 6y ago
In the U.S., my experience with Whatsapp was that I created an account and never used it once to communicate with anyone, then I deleted it.
I've also withdrawn from social media.
The exception for now is HN, because it's more of a forum, even when bad information sometimes instates itself as reality for a large conversation, like a big gathering of fans talking about their team that will inevitably fail to win or perhaps a bad STD.
I learn what others are doing through direct and intentional communication, even if technology is used or if the information is second-hand. I don't text back or call back immediately, which my friends and family forgive, but it sometimes seems to hurt my relationships.
I still worry of dependence on large companies, big data companies gathering more information about me than I know myself, and the potential of out-of-control AIs. However, I attribute these in-part to my own paranoid thinking that use my memories of large company layoffs, privacy concerns raised in the tech community, and mostly fiction.
While I've come to the realization that the act to trying to be happy and successful is the very thing that makes me unhappy, and I just need to exist, maybe becoming better at whatever I'm naturally good at, while being here and now with those I'm with, giving my service to them... I still keep wasting time replying about things that don't matter.
- teekert 6y agoWA is not particularly good, it's just that I don't know anyone who doesn't use it (in the Netherlands), even when you want to contact helpdesks it is sometimes the preferred way. I mean, we have this in many streets: [0] Without kids I could see myself getting away with not using WA, but with kids you are really setting yourself up for a very hard time (and prepare to be judged by other (annoyed) parents and your kid will feel the consequences at some point, the kids will miss out on critical and fun information). WA has almost become what email used to be. Except that it's a controlled platform and we are locked into a single provider, a provider that once promised a focus on privacy and an app free of commercials, forever... [0] https://duckduckgo.com/?q=whatsapp+buurtpreventie&t=ffsb&iax=images&ia=images&iai=http%3A%2F%2Fcdn.nieuws.nl%2Fmedia%2Fsites%2F305%2F2015%2F12%2F05153708%2Fattentie-whatsapp-buurtpreventie.jpg https://duckduckgo.com/?q=whatsapp+buurtpreventie&t=ffsb&iax...
- dtech 6y agoIt has completely replace texting in NL and some parts of Europe too, and I mean that literally.
- teekert 6y agoAt one point I had unlimited data (2011-ish?) for 5 eur/month and a text was 20 euro cents per 160 chars or so... So I guess providers wanted SMS to disappear here.
- beaconstudios 6y agoyep, here in the UK everyone I know uses whatsapp. Some people have telegram as well, but WA is the baseline. The only SMS texts I get are marketing and automatic notifications.
- studius 6y agoWhat does it do that's so great?
- chaosite 6y agoIt's "good enough", and it used to be free when texting wasn't. And it's better than SMS at Unicode.
- teekert 6y agoAnd at sending/receiving pictures... MMS was even more expensive here.
- beaconstudios 6y agoit just replaced texting back when phone contracts tried to charge lots of money for texts. The network effect does the rest.
- Agingcoder 6y ago