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Where is the "Don't switch" option? Because as much as I hate that Facebook bought them, they're part of what I would call "critical social infrastructure." As

Where is the "Don't switch" option? Because as much as I hate that Facebook bought them, they're part of what I would call "critical social infrastructure." Asking to leave WhatsApp is like cancelling your contract with your ISP and going offline just because you don't like the company.

chrisblackwell 6y ago
I am forced to use the ISPs in my area due to only 1 or 2 alternatives. This is not the case with online communication.
- arrrg 6y ago
  You have to use what people you know use. What use is switching to some messenger that no one you know uses? Obviously you can always fall back on SMS and e-mail, probably, but that is a path to social isolation in many cases. So, it’s not exactly the same as having two ISPs to pick from but to pretend that your choice is completely free and unconstrained is also a dangerous lie to tell yourself and others. To solve this … well, I don’t know. Probably regulation? Benevolent tech giants that for some reason decide to push open, federated messengers?
emsy 6y ago
That’s not a good comparison. There are many alternatives to WhatsApp and it’s not a „critical“ infrastructure. In contrast, you sometimes can’t choose your ISP and internet is much more critical.
- timvdalen 6y ago
  It can be in area's (such as in The Netherlands) where literally _everyone_ is on WhatsApp and it is the default form of personal online communication. Not using WhatsApp means not being able to communicate with a lot of people.
  - toper-centage 6y ago
    Same with Portugal and Facebook messenger. I found a solution but it's less than ideal. I have less friends now.
  - dkdbejwi383 6y ago
    Same in the UK. All my friends, family, coworkers. My boss. I've used WhatsApp instead of email to communicate with my landlord, recruiters. Some companies even use it for customer service as an alternative to phone or some terrible chat built into their website.
  - aden1ne 6y ago
    In the Netherlands it's so pervasive, it isn't only the default form a personal online communication anymore. Rather, it is quickly becoming the default form of online customer interaction as well.
  - zajio1am 6y ago
    Do not they have e-mail? That seems like safe default.
    - sevrinsky 6y ago
      To most people, email is something that you use for work, or if you're over 50.
  - CalChris 6y ago
    I use both. I realize that Facebook already has my social graph and the epsilon more information they get from my family chats pencils out to epsilon. I use Signal when I don't want Facebook to know and monetize that knowledge.
  - ghosty141 6y ago
    Same in Germany. You have no chance without Whatsapp. Every birthday party, every friend circle etc. has a Whatsapp group.
- vanviegen 6y ago
  That might depend on where you live. Around here, WhatsApp definitely is "critical", in the sense that schools, sports clubs, business as well as social life seem to be built around it nowadays. :-(
- hkt 6y ago
  I can choose my ISP in the UK, but we have such brutally entrenched network effects with WhatsApp that it literally means not talking to loved ones and community groups if you quit.
- obahareth 6y ago
  Where I live, everything is based around WhatsApp. If you want to receive a package from Amazon/FedEx/DHL/UPS, etc. The shipment will only be delivered to the location you share with the courier on WhatsApp, if you're not on WhatsApp you can't even receive packages. There are so many other things like this that are happening only on WhatsApp, and if you're not on it you won't even be able to use basic services.
lbj 6y ago
I quit WhatsApp, Facebook et al and went with Signal. Initially it was hard converting people to a privacy oriented service, but today I have an endless list of open chats in Signal.
- boraoztunc 6y ago
  Same scenario here.
- webmobdev 6y ago
  Consider Jami - https://jami.net/ https://jami.net/ - instead of Signal.
  - tapoxi 6y ago
    Jami seems like a very neat idea, but I've encountered numerous crashes and issues with it. It was also pretty easy to get my family using Signal because it uses your existing address book. The need to send a Jami address is a huge hurdle for the non-technical.
  - sprash 6y ago
    This! We have to switch to decentralized open source solutions. I have tested Jami and the video conferencing functionality works great on Android.
nindalf 6y ago
Regardless of your opinion of this comment, it's still worthwhile to have the option of "staying with WhatsApp" in the poll.
- fsflover 6y ago
  The question is "To which app are you going to switch?", not "What are you using?" It may take a long time and huge effort to switch, but people are starting to do it.
  - nindalf 6y ago
    > The question is "To which app are you going to switch?" And a reasonable answer is "your assumption is wrong, I don't plan to switch at all". I have no doubt that some people will switch, what I'd like to know if that movement is niche or mainstream.
    - mkmk2 6y ago
      And an answer to that is maybe youre not the intended target of this poll. If the op is looking for alternatives, that's not a very useful option
    - fsflover 6y ago
      Then this question is not for you. People who want to switch decided to find out which option is supported by the community more. No one is interested how many people stay on Whatsapp (I know that it's a lot).
      - pbhjpbhj 6y ago
        I'm interested in how many stay on WhatsApp. If 1000, in the poll are moving to Telegram, but 10,000 are staying on WhatsApp that changes the complexion of the result considerably. But then I'm off the opinion petitions should collect both for-and-against responses; government petitions should be required to do so.
    - 6y ago
jcelerier 6y ago
> Because as much as I hate that Facebook bought them, they're part of what I would call "critical social infrastructure." ... is it ? I only got whatsapp last year and most of the people I know from real life aren't on it. In a big french city with a 50 thousand-students university.
- dqv 6y ago
  For some people it is yes. It varies by region though. Since not everyone is in a big French city with a fifty-thousand-student university, different messaging applications are popular in different areas. Back in the day, all the people in the US I knew used AOL Instant Messenger, but if I wanted to talk to anyone in the UK I had to use MSN Messenger. A more modern example: If you have family in China, you have to use WeChat.
- arrrg 6y ago
  Obviously this depends on your exact circumstances. You might be whole unaffected or literally everyone you know might use it. Either way, you depend on other people. This sucks, by the way. No doubt about that. But I doubt that individuals can do anything in that regard. Probably regulation. Or a benevolent tech company that decides to push some sort of open messenger protocol (with good enough properties) that anyone can join and where anyone can make clients for. You know, kinda like e-mail.
MOUNOPANO 6y ago
How is it possible for this answer to be first... Really HN? WhatsApp is critical infrastructure?? Excluding company ownership, what is the crucial difference between all IM listed? There's LITTLE DIFFERENCE, they all serve the same purpose, feature parity is pretty much there. When you add company ownership to the mix, WhatsApp is owned by fucking Facebook. Let that sear in your mind.
- dan-robertson 6y ago
  WhatsApp serves the purpose of talking to my friends and family. Signal serves the purpose of talking to myself
  - Algent 6y ago
    Yep exactly, "critical social infrastructure" is on point. Here almost everyone is on WhatsApp and some are on messenger, meanwhile the other apps are only used by a few. Last year I even had to register on FB to not be out of the loop concerning a sport club I got in.
- criley2 6y ago
  "WhatsApp is owned by fucking Facebook. Let that sear in your mind" You might have good arguments for your white-hot searing hatred of this company, but I will confess, it makes your position look much worse when you represent it with hotly charged emotional statements instead of reasoning. For example: I find it trivial to understand why someone would call a Facebook service "Critical Infrastructure", thinking about how we don't control how families and communities choose to meet up. Your childs little league sport uses facebook, your aunt and uncles have organized the family into a whatsapp channel, your President incites riots on Twitter... we don't get to choose which networks are the critical ones, and sometimes, we make the binary choice of "Be apart of society" or "Don't". Just my 2c, it doesn't seem that hard to understand why he would call these things critical, when you actually take a few moments to think it through honestly.
- apexalpha 6y ago
  >Excluding company ownership, what is the crucial difference between all IM listed? The crucial difference is that in my life everyone is on WhatsApp, and no one is on any of the other IMs. That is the difference. And I don't use the word everyone here lightly, I mean it (99,9%) literally. My family, my parents, my friends, my colleagues, my 91 year old grandmother, my potential clients, my actual clients, the support line for the webshop I order from, the support line for my supermarket, etc... Everyone. I can't speak for other countries, but in the Netherlands WhatsApp is undeniably a part of your social infrastructure. It doesn't matter if any of those other IMs have feature parity, better security or stricter privacy. There's just no one to message.
hoka-one-one 6y ago
I honestly wish I understood what the big deal is. Don't give the app any permissions and you're good. All they can share then are your contacts.
- metafunctor 6y ago
  Just like you didn’t give Facebook permission to track you on the web?
  - hoka-one-one 6y ago
    I mean, if that's your argument then it seems like the OP article isn't valuable news. It's a change to terms of service when you never trusted the ToS to begin with.
- childintime 6y ago
  > All they can share then are your contacts. Is the phone company allowed to share your contacts?
  - deleted 6y ago
    [deleted]
vletrmx 6y ago
Right, exactly, I have to use WhatsApp because it's what everyone else uses, so leaving isn't even an option.
- rcMgD2BwE72F 6y ago
  I had to use Myspace, MSN Messenger and Google Chat, because all my friends were there, too.
cedricbonhomme 6y ago
Not a good comparison and quite exaggerated...
HourglassFR 6y ago
I agree, all my friends and familly are on WhatsApp and they will definitely not switch. So from my point of view, I have to balance the cost between sharing data to Facebook and severely hampering communications with my love ones. I guess what I'm saying is that the network effect is just too damn strong (for me at least).
- rglullis 6y ago
  Can I help you to at least try it? Take a look at https://communick.com https://communick.com. You can sign up for a 14-day trial and get to invite 10 people to your plan.
- jonnytran 6y ago
  > they will definitely not switch. How do you know? Have you asked them? Many of my family and close friends did install a new messaging app when I asked them. How do you think WhatsApp became so popular in the first place?
sbilstein 6y ago
At this point the game has changed with social apps; I’m including messaging as “social.” It is easier than ever to rebuild the important parts of your social graph on Signal, Clubhouse, Snap, IG, whatever platform you need. I talk to the same friends via Twitter DM, WhatsApp, IG, signal, hangouts and iMessage. Open access to contact books and APIs have made this so easy. I can leave WhatsApp and my network will find me elsewhere.
- DangerousPie 6y ago
  I don't think this is true. Sure, you can maybe get your close friends or close family to switch. But I don't think my landlord or my distant relatives will install Signal just because I don't want to use WhatsApp anymore.
  - melomal 6y ago
    What about SMS? It's free for most plans.
    - Jtsummers 6y ago
      SMS/MMS don't work or are unreliable for international communication. SMS/MMS, historically, have been unreliable cross-carrier domestically in the US. Many cheaper Android phones, especially, seemed to be particularly poor players with SMS/MMS group chats. SMS/MMS doesn't guarantee message delivery order (which can lead to some comical exchanges when the first split of the message shows up a day after the last split, but also obnoxious). MMS, depending on phone, isn't particularly useful for a lot of multimedia or mixed content messages (not just text or simple and small images). WhatsApp is free on carriers in many countries (including large portions of Asia and South America), contrasting with other messaging platforms which use a standard data plan. It delivers messages reliably, group messages just work, and it works properly for mixed content messages. And data is (relatively) cheap in most countries where WhatsApp isn't free.
      - melomal 6y ago
JshWright 6y ago
Also missing a "I'm not switching because I've never needed to use WhatsApp" option. My social circle has been on Signal for years and WhatsApp never caught on.
- hoorayimhelping 6y ago
  Nobody cares that you and your crew are using a WhatsApp alternative, which is why there's no option for you to signal that you're using an alternative. This is for people who want to switch and are looking for suggestions, not for people who are trying to show off that they don't need to switch.
  - fahadkhan 6y ago
    I find it interesting to that people don't use WhatsApp at all. Many posts here are claiming not using WhatsApp is impossible. Grandparent's experience demonstrate that it is.
    - exhilaration 6y ago
      It depends on the country you're in and what country your extended family is in. Whatsapp absolutely dominates in South Asia and South America. You can see a full map here: https://www.messengerpeople.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/07/statistik-messenger-apps-top-by-country-en-stand-2019-09.png https://www.messengerpeople.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/07/s... Most Americans, for example, have no need for it. I feel like iMessage is the dominant messaging platform in the U.S.
      - fareed79 6y ago
        iMessage is iOS right? because the link you post shows facebook messenger is strongest in the US.
        nomel 6y ago
        > "Based on Google Play Store rank" That diagram is for Android only, so I wouldn't read too much into it.
jbotz 6y ago
Well, I don't know where parent is located, but here in Brazil they are pretty much right. Everybody has WhatsApp... it's assumed that if you have a phone you have WhatsApp. A lot of financial transactions are conducted by doing a bank transfer and then sending the receipt via WhatsApp. The schools send essential messages to parents via WhatsApp. During lockdowns, stores were taking delivery orders via WhatsApp. What's more, several cell phone operators' plans include unlimited WhatsApp, but only a few GB of other data... meaning when your data limits are reached you can still use WhatsApp for the rest of the month, but not i.e. Signal or Telegram. That makes is rather hard to convince people to switch. So yeah, pretty damn close to critical infrastructure. I'm still going to delete my account and see what happens, but unlike the siblings here I can't disagree with parent, at least for Brazil. [Edit] When I delete my account I'm going to lose old conversations, but that doesn't bother me anymore because I already recently lost them once when I switched from Android to iOS... WhatsApp has no way of keeping your history in that case. And otherwise there's really no friction to deleting an account, since you can always recreate it.
- gst 6y ago
  > [Edit] When I delete my account I'm going to lose old conversations, but that doesn't bother me anymore because I already recently lost them once when I switched from Android to iOS... WhatsApp has no way of keeping your history in that case. And otherwise there's really no friction to deleting an account, since you can always recreate it. There are several third-party tools that allow to convert the history from Android to iOS. I recently switched and was able to keep all of my history.
  - hnick 6y ago
    Mind naming the one you used? We'll have a spare iPhone soon when my wife upgrades and it might be time for me to go back to iOS after many years. I'm just a bit worried about some apps and things that might be harder to migrate like this.
- incrudible 6y ago
  I like to think the problem is that "the nerds" have failed the rest of the people. People used to listen to us about computer stuff. Then computers became usable without us. Then smartphones arrived. We gladly were relieved of our obligations, but also of our influence. It's too late to go back. People are already used to the trade-offs, convenience rules above all. People may be "sort of concerned" about privacy, but they shrug it off. If privacy was high-value, any privacy-conscious competitor would've taken the market by storm.
ianai 6y ago
No social media today qualify as “critical social infrastructure."
tim333 6y ago
There's also the keep WhatsApp for legacy contacts but use Signal or some such for new ones option. Personally I'm probably a bit odd here in that I don't mind facebook having my info. So they may show me a personalised ad - big deal.
- marc_io 6y ago
  This is much more important than personal preference. This is detrimental to the flow of information in entire countries, no kidding. Each person can contribute to end this – or not.
rglullis 6y ago
Last I checked, my phone and my computer do not require me to use only messaging app. WhatsApp is "critical" now only now due to its network effects, but you can transition away to something else. Right now I have maybe a dozen friends and family members on my matrix server. I helped them set up the app, configured their communick accounts, made a few video calls to ensure it was working, etc. Current step is to help my wife to do the same with her friends. Slowly but steadily, we are moving our communication network away from WhatsApp and into Matrix. Each one that we move makes WhatsApp less "critical" and makes us more free from monopolistic assholes. We don't need the Government to control any of that, in fact I believe that waiting for the government to do anything is not going to achieve anything.
- redkoala 6y ago
  One issue is the fractured nature of alternatives would mean limited network effects, if one group moves to Matrix, and another to Signal, and another to Telegram, that means juggling multiple alternatives depending on the groups one is part of.
  - rglullis 6y ago
    While less than ideal, even in that case Matrix has an advantage: bridges. Matrix servers can be setup with bridges to allow communication with other protocols, so matrix users can reach telegram or signal contacts without switching clients.
- mattl 6y ago
  Nobody is going to get their whole family circle to move to Matrix.
  - rglullis 6y ago
    Not with that attitude, you won't. ;) Seriously, though. See my other responses. Switching does not need to be an atomic operation, also learn about Matrix bridges.
game_the0ry 6y ago
Try not to get mad please, but ... > Where is the "Don't switch" option? Because as much as I hate that Facebook bought them, they're part of what I would call "critical social infrastructure." No such thing as "critical social infrastructure." Could you live without whatsapp? Yes. Then by definition it is not critical. > Asking to leave WhatsApp is like cancelling your contract with your ISP and going offline just because you don't like the company. Not at all. Some areas in the US don't have choice of what ISP they can use, but you have many good choices for messaging apps. I am growing tiresome of people complaining (on HN, of all places) about how evil facebook and google are but will not go as far as cancelling facebook or using duckduckgo for search, or protonmail for email. Folks, if you are not happy, you have choices and they are free and very convenient. The services you complain about using for free are not the problem, you're just lazy. EDIT - you folks in the replies are basically proving my point. Instead of taking ownership over the freedom of choice that you have, you would rather make excuses to justify lack of initiative. That's not a healthy or happy frame of mind to box yourself in, and it gives too much of your emotional influence to the platforms. Like you folks are seriously comparing a messaging app to ISPs and heating in london...really? Give me a break, snowflake.
- GregorBrandt 6y ago
  Have you travelled or lived in central or South America? WhatsApp is critical social infrastructure. WhatsApp is used more than telephones. For everything. Businesses advertise their WhatsApp contact before, or even omitting, a telephone number. People you meet want your WhatsApp for communication, not your telephone number. WhatsApp has become critical to these countries as the primary form of communication.
- nindalf 6y ago
  > Could you live without whatsapp? Yes. Then by definition it is not critical. Can I live without heating in London? Yes I wouldn't die without it. But without heating it's extremely uncomfortable. I'd say it is critical for me because "dying/not dying" is not the criteria for deciding.
- eldaisfish 6y ago
  Your analogies are very poor and all over the place. Can you live without electricity? Sure, if you are willing to severely decrease your quality of life. Your ISP analogy is again flawed while the OPs' is reasonably relevant. A social communication app has a critical part to being relevant to use - the social part. It's a chicken and egg problem because if people don't use Signal or Telegram or wall, the app serves no useful purpose. The mere existence of a choice does not mean that all choices are equally useful or even relevant. This argument of "you're lazy" is (ironically) incredibly lazy and often results in software that is unreasonably hard to use - again, an analogy that i hope folks here would understand. Whatsapp works, is simple to use and has sufficient users to be critical infrastructure. Using "laziness" is a cop out. If something isn't broken, don't fix it.
holstvoogd 6y ago
I feel ya, deleting whatsapp will not be great for my social life. Neither was deleting facebook, at least at the time when it was still being used. Whatsapp has inserted itself into the social fabric as a benevolent offering and now that we are all locked in we get what we payed for. But that is all the more reason to get rid of it. Of course this makes life complicated. But if we don't make these hard choices and 'sacrifices', it will never stop. They will keep eroding away at our privacy and freedom. It will only become harder the longer we wait. This kind of things will keep happening though as long as we allow monopolies and closed platforms. We should really be more careful with accepting these companies into our lives.
slothtrop 6y ago
As someone who's never used such a service, help me understand what's so critical about it. Can't people just send SMS? Aren't people on fb anyway, which can be accessed with a container on Firefox? EDIT: got some answers re SMS. Fine, though that doesn't explain why there is so much overlap/redundancy with social media applications. At a glance, it appears I could do the very same things (groups, multimedia) messaging people on facebook without having to install an app, and if people are on whatsapp they're almost 100% on facebook. Apparently the "critical" nature of this is the facility of sending high rates of pictures and videos to others. I suspect mere FOMO owing to group-chat being localized there is enough to keep some people from cutting the cord, not the ability to communicate to multiple people in itself. People really are addicted to each other.
- r007c0n7r0l 6y ago
  WhatsApp allows Group Conversations and Sharing Media (Pictures, Videos, Files, Audio Files, GPS Location, Video Calls). SMS and MMS can not cope with that in large quantity like 100mbs of video files and hundred of pictures, because data is cheaper than MMS costs. This Privacy policy change whill allow Facebook, who bought WhatsApp, to extract all these data for their own purpose, before it was not the case.
  - slothtrop 6y ago
    Can't all this be done on facebook?
    - Phobophobia 6y ago
      You used to be able to use WhatsApp and not have a Facebook account (for the obvious reasons).
    - baq 6y ago
      that's the point - it isn't facebook, except it is.
- sbergot 6y ago
  People use whatsapp groups a lot. Also sharing images doesn't work well with SMS.
lwhi 6y ago
Maybe we should be closing FB accounts instead.
zecg 6y ago
I found out it's pretty much not so dramatic when I left FB and WA in 2017. The people I communicate with have mostly accepted also having Signal.
mcv 6y ago
> "Asking to leave WhatsApp is like cancelling your contract with your ISP and going offline just because you don't like the company." You can get a contract with a different ISP. That's what this is about: not doing without messaging completely, but switching to a different messaging service. My family switched to Signal, and we're quite happy there. I still have Whatsapp because the schools of my children use it.
deleted 6y ago
[deleted]
dustinmoris 6y ago
> they're part of what I would call "critical social infrastructure." Really? That seems a depressingly low bar for what you consider "critical". If WhatsApp would disappear tomorrow, I think my social infrastructure would not suffer at all. I still have a smartphone with hundreds of other apps, including iMessage, SMS, and so on.. Besides that, I only consider real human interaction as critical. > Asking to leave WhatsApp is like cancelling your contract with your ISP and going offline just because you don't like the company. Sounds kind of depressing again. Not sure where you live, but most countries in the world have more than one ISP. I have switched ISP often in my lifetime. Never was it an issue, nor a massive burden and it has not caused me to go offline at all.
- sevrinsky 6y ago
  Suggesting iMessage -- available only on Apple products -- as a alternative to avoid WhatsApp lock-in has to be the most ironic thing I've seen today.
deeblering4 6y ago
Why is this the top voted comment? Leaving WhatsApp is nothing at all like cutting off your internet connection. It is just one out of literally dozens of available text messaging apps, and it is owned by one of the least ethical companies that exists today.
- TheRealSteel 6y ago
  "It is just one out of literally dozens of available text messaging apps" It baffles me people are still saying this. You can only message people that are using the SAME messaging app as you. I can't just up and switch apps and expect my 30+ friends and relatives and housemates and coworkers to switch with me!
  - 51Cards 6y ago
    Not if you are content to send SMS/MMS messages. I text all of my friends, clients, and family networks and avoid propritary platforms and none of them have ever complained.
  - boogies 6y ago
    > You can only message people that are using the SAME messaging app as you. No, Matrix supports bridging with about two dozen protocols,¹ many of which support multiple clients (at least 7: IRC, RSS, Email, SMS, Mastodon, libpurple —actually a library supporting multiple protocols including IRC and XMPP— and Twitter) — some of which have dozens if not hundreds of clients. ¹IRC, Slack, RSS, Gitter, Discord, RocketChat, iMessage, Facebook Messenger, Email, SMS, Mastodon, libpurple, GroupMe, Skype, WeChat, Tox, Mumble, Twitter, Mattermost, Keybase (Edit: this one was discontinued), Google Hangouts, Telegram, WhatsApp, Instagram, and Signal — https://matrix.org/bridges/ https://matrix.org/bridges/
    - upofadown 6y ago
      The linked to page does not mention XMPP...
      - 6y ago
agd 6y ago
> Critical social infrastructure At least for the UK, this is not at all the case. It’s perfectly feasible to socialise and do business without going anywhere near WhatsApp.
- TheRealSteel 6y ago
  I live in the UK and this is absolutely 100% not true, you cannot function in society here without WhatsApp. In Australia the same is true for Facebook. In every country there's something, and almost all of them outside China are owned by Facebook.
  - agd 6y ago
    I find this incredible to hear. I know many people who live very sociable lives who don’t have WhatsApp or Facebook. And these are not techno privacy geeks but regular people across different age groups. I have to strongly disagree based on personal evidence that ‘you cannot function socially in society without WhatsApp’.
  - WorkLobster 6y ago
    "Cannot function in society" is something of an exaggeration. I have never used WhatsApp and never really suffered for it. The only issue I noticed is needing to check in with individual members of the board game group and rock climbing group every now and then to see if there are plans.
  - jfk13 6y ago
    I also live in the UK, but I have never used WhatsApp. People's requirements and experiences differ greatly. WhatsApp may be essential to you, but it's not essential to everyone.
- pbhjpbhj 6y ago
  [UK] All the school chat for my kids, both for secondary schoolers and for us as parents, is on WhatsApp. Amongst my family WhatsApp is the primary means of group communication.
- 6y ago
TheRealSteel 6y ago
Yeah, if this is a poll for which is the best service to switch to for the rare instance when you have a choice, then okay. If this is a poll about what I intend to do? Nothing, facebook has me by the balls and will for years to come. Maybe certain small groups or individuals will be willing to switch with me, but it's not like I'm uninstalling WhatsApp any time soon. I'll just link my comment from the other article about the Whatsapp changes: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25672109 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25672109 Plus I'm sure they've linked all the data they can in their backend already. It's hard to believe the notice we all got this morning was really going to realistically change very much of anything.
tomatocracy 6y ago
I guess the question is does switching piecemeal allow for some of the benefits of switching wholesale? Especially, can I restrict which parts of my address book (and other data) get shared with WhatsApp? Then I could communicate with people who are on another platform using that platform but keep using WhatsApp for people who haven't moved over. Hopefully over time there would be a complete migration.
jcul 6y ago
All we can do is try. If we do nothing then the problem only gets worse. I considered just accepting it and moving on, but I've thought again and I'm trying to get as many contacts onto Signal as I can. At least there will be another option and as much as I love matrix I think Signal is the best balance between user friendliness and privacy. I made the mistake before of giving multiple options which just scares non-tech people off, so now I'm just pushing Signal.
jrockway 6y ago
I've never used WhatsApp nor have any of my friends ever mentioned it as a method they'd like to use to chat with me. I typically send normal SMS messages. The impression that I get is that WhatsApp is not "a thing" in the US?
tobib 6y ago
> Asking to leave WhatsApp is like cancelling your contract with your ISP and going offline just because you don't like the company. Not "going offline" since people are obviously looking for an alternative. More like switching your ISP because you don't like the company.
Xelbair 6y ago
what about option "don't need to switch"? because i never used whatsapp in the first place
jorangreef 6y ago
Not really. These things go slow at first and then all of a sudden. I think Facebook have underestimated the resilience of their network effect to an ultimatum like this. Integrity is a force multiplier, and when you set your integrity to zero it doesn't take long before the rest of your asset is also zero. Anything times zero is zero. Even WhatsApp. How the mighty fall.
blendergeek 6y ago
> Asking to leave WhatsApp is like cancelling your contract with your ISP and going offline just because you don't like the company. If I choose to stop using my ISP, I have no need to "go offline". I can simply switch ISPs and I still get the exact same internet. This is why we must not fall for this "critical social infrastructure" trap. No one company deserves our business. We can and should go elsewhere. Messaging should be like the internet. If I don't like my messaging provider, I should be able to switch and still message everybody. Ideally, I would be able to bring my identifier with me. Luckily, SMS already provides this. I therefore recommend old-fashioned SMS/MMS for messaging. If you want something more "modern", I would recommend Matrix, as it is the only "modern" messaging system that wants to allow people to switch providers while still messaging the same people.
- ColinWright 6y ago
  > Matrix ... the only "modern" messaging system that wants to allow people to switch providers while still messaging the same people. But does it really do so in practice? If I'm using Element/Matrix and a colleague is using WhatsApp, or Signal, or Telegram, or Briar. Can they reliably send me messages? Can I reliably send them messages? I've been told it's possible, but more than one person I know has tried and failed. Is it common? Reliable? Possible? Or theoretical, and unachievable in practice? Have you done it?
  - blendergeek 6y ago
    > But does it really do so in practice? If I'm using Element/Matrix and a colleague is using WhatsApp, or Signal, or Telegram, or Briar. Can they reliably send me messages? Can I reliably send them messages? Matrix is not the provider. Matrix is the protocol/idea. Element is both an app and a service. What is common, reliable, and achievable in practice: I decide I no longer like New Vector (who run the matrix.org home server). I switch to Purism's matrix server. I no longer am doing business with New Vector, yet I can still chat with everybody that is using New Vector's matrix service.
    - ColinWright 6y ago
agumonkey 6y ago
And what about stop smartphone messenging ?
aloukissas 6y ago
It's more like canceling your contract with your ISP, but you don't live in the US and you have options wrt to ISP and you have plenty others to choose from :)
IG_Semmelweiss 6y ago
This is true in Ecuador as well. I was shocked. This process was turbocharged by COVID19 Most unemoloyed people with no steady income turned to last-mile delivery of all kinds of random goods and services... All done via whatsapp Its frictionless. Like a website chatbot. Except its free and you can do it on the move. I dont think it will take off here becuase businesses here have built web infrastructure for e-commerce. Whatsapp is to ecommerce what smartphones where to connectivity. 3rd world countries skipped fixed wires and laptops and went straight to smartphones over air This is the same process.
oarabbus_ 6y ago
It's not possible to be Indian and not use WhatsApp, assuming you want to have any contact with your family and friends whatsoever.
hordeallergy 6y ago
You want change but without making any effort?
dstroot 6y ago
I ask this as a non-Whatsapp user. I have read the comments and I understand in some countries (Brazil, Netherlands, etc.) that Whatsapp is the main tool for person to person and person to business communications. What I can't figure out is why did it displace "plain SMS" or other tools. What drove the adoption? I'd love to hear more about that - was Whatsapp just the first mover?
- airstrike 6y ago
  Free VoIP, first and foremost. I remember when my dad told me his cousin from Venezuela suggested an app to him that allowed him to make free calls to anyone who also has it. I told him that was probably not right and he might have downloaded malware on his Android... Turns out he was right and the app took Brazil by storm On top of that, media, voice clips and cross-platform compatibility.
  - jolmg 6y ago
    Yeah, some countries don't charge premiums for long-distance and roaming between each other, but among those that do charge such premiums, this would be another killer feature.
- jolmg 6y ago
  > What I can't figure out is why did it displace "plain SMS" or other tools. SMS was unreliable, at least back when it was used. It was common for someone to receive it hours later or at least many minutes later, when it was too late. Informing someone you just got the message they told you about in-person a while back was a common occurrence. You also don't know when a person received your message, so you would opt to call them anyways if they take too long to reply with something even if they were just busy. Basically, the 2 checkmarks on each message is the killer feature. Spam is also a problem with SMS. Email is something that never really took off in mobile devices. I suppose everyone saw it as the same thing as SMS, with the same issues. Perhaps worse, since an email client needed to poll the server for new messages. SMS is something people did since before smartphones. Dumbphones didn't commonly have real support for email. Also, email on a mobile device meant you had to setup the mail client, and you didn't have to setup anything with SMS, just give people your number.
blacklight 6y ago
I understand the social lock-in factor, but there's no technological reason why people couldn't migrate to another app. Messaging apps, for 99% of the people, are only supposed to deliver text and media from A to B. It's not hard in 2021 to develop such an app, even with E2E encryption and 2FA, even for a CS graduate. I'm appalled by the scarcity of real alternatives to WhatsApp, considering that a messaging app is a piece of software with low technological barriers. The solution seems quite clear to me. Force messaging apps to expose a public API, so that messages can easily be delivered regardless of the client used on both ends - XMPP used to provide exactly that, but both Google and Facebook decided to use it as a starting point and then gradually deviate from it with their own closed implementations. If one platform decides to bully its users with "let me read your messages so I can send you better ads or leave the platform", users would simply leave that platform without losing their contacts.
croes 6y ago
That's what you should bdo. If you don't like the company don't buy from them. Especially when many alternatives exist. It's just a choice to use WhatsApp not a necessity. Just remember MySpace.
soupson 6y ago
There is a middle ground between taking your ball and going home and playing by the new rules without complaint. Adding another app — my vote goes to Signal - and making a lot of noise on WhatsApp is one option. If I recall correctly, WhatsApp has statuses. Changing yours to “Keeping WhatsApp for business transactions only — find me on Signal for private chat” is one idea. The people on this board have the power to move their friends away from terrible software. Use it.
nmlnn 6y ago
Do people not realize they can run more than 1 messenger app at a time?
- maximuscoolimus 6y ago
  The mental overhead of switching between - and keeping track of - messaging apps shouldn't be ignored. Speaking from experience, I have a hard time remembering which specific platform is preferred by specific contacts. It's a minor annoyance, but it's always present. How many messenger apps do you run, and how many is too many? For me, the limit is 2. Note that currently I am forced to keep 5 different apps to keep in touch with my contacts.
1vuio0pswjnm7 6y ago
"Asking to leave WhatsApp is like cancelling your contract with yout ISP and going offline just because you don't like the company." Hopefully the reason this is at the top is not this sentence. This hallucinatory idea is exactly what Facebook PR, a.k.a. "damage control", wants people to believe. You have no contract with Facebook. You pay them nothing. There is no legal recourse whatsoever. You cannot enforce "your end of the bargain" because Facebook undertakes no obligations to you. Say what you want about the quality of your internet or cellular provider's service, etc., or how much you hate a company, but the fact is they have to fulfill their contractual obligations and provide service, they cannot just do whatever they want, whenever they want, as Facebook can. If the internet/cellular provider does not deliver, then there is no Facebook. Whereas Facebook could disappear if their advertisers stop paying and the internet would still be here, because people would still be paying for internet access, and internet users would still use the internet to do all the same things they do now, and more. Practically speaking, you may treat a tech company like a common carrier, like a telephone/internet/cellular provider. After all to the user it may seem no different. It is accessed through a "phone" and it seems to work like the service they pay for through an ISP or cellular provider. But the minute you say this is like a "contract" you are submitting to pure delusion. You have no contract with Facebook as a user and you pay nothing. You're a product not a customer. Facebook has essentially zero exposure to liability from user complaints and that is why you are reading so many complaints about them, e.g., on HN. The best a user can do is rant into the aether and pound sand. There is no contract to enforce! Then there is the absurdity of pretending that access to one company's computers is equivalent to access to the entire internet. This is like saying cancelling your subscription to AOL is like cancelling your account with your ISP. Today, no one is naive enough to equate AOL with the internet, as people once did. But Facebook believes people are naive enough to equate "Facebook" with "the internet". No doubt the AOL phenomena is a running joke at Facebook. The more things "change" the more they stay the same. Do whatever you want, but let's refrain from propagating illusions that tech companies want people to believe.
- officeplant 6y ago
  Given how integrated Whatsapp is in many non-US markets, their statement is spot on. It has nothing to do with propagating the lies of a tech company. It's about being stuck in a society that has moved to a single platform because it made itself available as the easiest method long before facebook bought it up. See Also: Weechat in china, LINE in Japan. Living in the US I considering myself lucky that I'm not locked into a singular platform for communcation, payments, services, etc like many others.
bassman9000 6y ago
Asking to leave WhatsApp is like cancelling your contract with your ISP and going offline The OP is literally a poll of other services. In any case, it would be to cancel with your ISP to go to another ISP.

chrisblackwell 6y ago

I am forced to use the ISPs in my area due to only 1 or 2 alternatives. This is not the case with online communication.

arrrg 6y ago
You have to use what people you know use. What use is switching to some messenger that no one you know uses? Obviously you can always fall back on SMS and e-mail, probably, but that is a path to social isolation in many cases. So, it’s not exactly the same as having two ISPs to pick from but to pretend that your choice is completely free and unconstrained is also a dangerous lie to tell yourself and others. To solve this … well, I don’t know. Probably regulation? Benevolent tech giants that for some reason decide to push open, federated messengers?

emsy 6y ago

That’s not a good comparison. There are many alternatives to WhatsApp and it’s not a „critical“ infrastructure. In contrast, you sometimes can’t choose your ISP and internet is much more critical.

timvdalen 6y ago
It can be in area's (such as in The Netherlands) where literally _everyone_ is on WhatsApp and it is the default form of personal online communication. Not using WhatsApp means not being able to communicate with a lot of people.
- toper-centage 6y ago
  Same with Portugal and Facebook messenger. I found a solution but it's less than ideal. I have less friends now.
- dkdbejwi383 6y ago
  Same in the UK. All my friends, family, coworkers. My boss. I've used WhatsApp instead of email to communicate with my landlord, recruiters. Some companies even use it for customer service as an alternative to phone or some terrible chat built into their website.
- aden1ne 6y ago
  In the Netherlands it's so pervasive, it isn't only the default form a personal online communication anymore. Rather, it is quickly becoming the default form of online customer interaction as well.
- zajio1am 6y ago
  Do not they have e-mail? That seems like safe default.
  - sevrinsky 6y ago
    To most people, email is something that you use for work, or if you're over 50.
- CalChris 6y ago
  I use both. I realize that Facebook already has my social graph and the epsilon more information they get from my family chats pencils out to epsilon. I use Signal when I don't want Facebook to know and monetize that knowledge.
- ghosty141 6y ago
  Same in Germany. You have no chance without Whatsapp. Every birthday party, every friend circle etc. has a Whatsapp group.
vanviegen 6y ago
That might depend on where you live. Around here, WhatsApp definitely is "critical", in the sense that schools, sports clubs, business as well as social life seem to be built around it nowadays. :-(
hkt 6y ago
I can choose my ISP in the UK, but we have such brutally entrenched network effects with WhatsApp that it literally means not talking to loved ones and community groups if you quit.
obahareth 6y ago
Where I live, everything is based around WhatsApp. If you want to receive a package from Amazon/FedEx/DHL/UPS, etc. The shipment will only be delivered to the location you share with the courier on WhatsApp, if you're not on WhatsApp you can't even receive packages. There are so many other things like this that are happening only on WhatsApp, and if you're not on it you won't even be able to use basic services.

lbj 6y ago

I quit WhatsApp, Facebook et al and went with Signal. Initially it was hard converting people to a privacy oriented service, but today I have an endless list of open chats in Signal.

boraoztunc 6y ago
Same scenario here.
webmobdev 6y ago
Consider Jami - https://jami.net/ https://jami.net/ - instead of Signal.
- tapoxi 6y ago
  Jami seems like a very neat idea, but I've encountered numerous crashes and issues with it. It was also pretty easy to get my family using Signal because it uses your existing address book. The need to send a Jami address is a huge hurdle for the non-technical.
- sprash 6y ago
  This! We have to switch to decentralized open source solutions. I have tested Jami and the video conferencing functionality works great on Android.

nindalf 6y ago

Regardless of your opinion of this comment, it's still worthwhile to have the option of "staying with WhatsApp" in the poll.

fsflover 6y ago
The question is "To which app are you going to switch?", not "What are you using?" It may take a long time and huge effort to switch, but people are starting to do it.
- nindalf 6y ago
  > The question is "To which app are you going to switch?" And a reasonable answer is "your assumption is wrong, I don't plan to switch at all". I have no doubt that some people will switch, what I'd like to know if that movement is niche or mainstream.
  - mkmk2 6y ago
    And an answer to that is maybe youre not the intended target of this poll. If the op is looking for alternatives, that's not a very useful option
  - fsflover 6y ago
    Then this question is not for you. People who want to switch decided to find out which option is supported by the community more. No one is interested how many people stay on Whatsapp (I know that it's a lot).
    - pbhjpbhj 6y ago
      I'm interested in how many stay on WhatsApp. If 1000, in the poll are moving to Telegram, but 10,000 are staying on WhatsApp that changes the complexion of the result considerably. But then I'm off the opinion petitions should collect both for-and-against responses; government petitions should be required to do so.
  - 6y ago

jcelerier 6y ago

> Because as much as I hate that Facebook bought them, they're part of what I would call "critical social infrastructure." ... is it ? I only got whatsapp last year and most of the people I know from real life aren't on it. In a big french city with a 50 thousand-students university.

dqv 6y ago
For some people it is yes. It varies by region though. Since not everyone is in a big French city with a fifty-thousand-student university, different messaging applications are popular in different areas. Back in the day, all the people in the US I knew used AOL Instant Messenger, but if I wanted to talk to anyone in the UK I had to use MSN Messenger. A more modern example: If you have family in China, you have to use WeChat.
arrrg 6y ago
Obviously this depends on your exact circumstances. You might be whole unaffected or literally everyone you know might use it. Either way, you depend on other people. This sucks, by the way. No doubt about that. But I doubt that individuals can do anything in that regard. Probably regulation. Or a benevolent tech company that decides to push some sort of open messenger protocol (with good enough properties) that anyone can join and where anyone can make clients for. You know, kinda like e-mail.

MOUNOPANO 6y ago

How is it possible for this answer to be first... Really HN? WhatsApp is critical infrastructure?? Excluding company ownership, what is the crucial difference between all IM listed? There's LITTLE DIFFERENCE, they all serve the same purpose, feature parity is pretty much there. When you add company ownership to the mix, WhatsApp is owned by fucking Facebook. Let that sear in your mind.

dan-robertson 6y ago
WhatsApp serves the purpose of talking to my friends and family. Signal serves the purpose of talking to myself
- Algent 6y ago
  Yep exactly, "critical social infrastructure" is on point. Here almost everyone is on WhatsApp and some are on messenger, meanwhile the other apps are only used by a few. Last year I even had to register on FB to not be out of the loop concerning a sport club I got in.
criley2 6y ago
"WhatsApp is owned by fucking Facebook. Let that sear in your mind" You might have good arguments for your white-hot searing hatred of this company, but I will confess, it makes your position look much worse when you represent it with hotly charged emotional statements instead of reasoning. For example: I find it trivial to understand why someone would call a Facebook service "Critical Infrastructure", thinking about how we don't control how families and communities choose to meet up. Your childs little league sport uses facebook, your aunt and uncles have organized the family into a whatsapp channel, your President incites riots on Twitter... we don't get to choose which networks are the critical ones, and sometimes, we make the binary choice of "Be apart of society" or "Don't". Just my 2c, it doesn't seem that hard to understand why he would call these things critical, when you actually take a few moments to think it through honestly.
apexalpha 6y ago
>Excluding company ownership, what is the crucial difference between all IM listed? The crucial difference is that in my life everyone is on WhatsApp, and no one is on any of the other IMs. That is the difference. And I don't use the word everyone here lightly, I mean it (99,9%) literally. My family, my parents, my friends, my colleagues, my 91 year old grandmother, my potential clients, my actual clients, the support line for the webshop I order from, the support line for my supermarket, etc... Everyone. I can't speak for other countries, but in the Netherlands WhatsApp is undeniably a part of your social infrastructure. It doesn't matter if any of those other IMs have feature parity, better security or stricter privacy. There's just no one to message.

hoka-one-one 6y ago

I honestly wish I understood what the big deal is. Don't give the app any permissions and you're good. All they can share then are your contacts.

metafunctor 6y ago
Just like you didn’t give Facebook permission to track you on the web?
- hoka-one-one 6y ago
  I mean, if that's your argument then it seems like the OP article isn't valuable news. It's a change to terms of service when you never trusted the ToS to begin with.
childintime 6y ago
> All they can share then are your contacts. Is the phone company allowed to share your contacts?
- deleted 6y ago
  [deleted]

vletrmx 6y ago

Right, exactly, I have to use WhatsApp because it's what everyone else uses, so leaving isn't even an option.

rcMgD2BwE72F 6y ago
I had to use Myspace, MSN Messenger and Google Chat, because all my friends were there, too.

cedricbonhomme 6y ago

Not a good comparison and quite exaggerated...

HourglassFR 6y ago

I agree, all my friends and familly are on WhatsApp and they will definitely not switch. So from my point of view, I have to balance the cost between sharing data to Facebook and severely hampering communications with my love ones. I guess what I'm saying is that the network effect is just too damn strong (for me at least).

rglullis 6y ago
Can I help you to at least try it? Take a look at https://communick.com https://communick.com. You can sign up for a 14-day trial and get to invite 10 people to your plan.
jonnytran 6y ago
> they will definitely not switch. How do you know? Have you asked them? Many of my family and close friends did install a new messaging app when I asked them. How do you think WhatsApp became so popular in the first place?

sbilstein 6y ago

At this point the game has changed with social apps; I’m including messaging as “social.” It is easier than ever to rebuild the important parts of your social graph on Signal, Clubhouse, Snap, IG, whatever platform you need. I talk to the same friends via Twitter DM, WhatsApp, IG, signal, hangouts and iMessage. Open access to contact books and APIs have made this so easy. I can leave WhatsApp and my network will find me elsewhere.

DangerousPie 6y ago
I don't think this is true. Sure, you can maybe get your close friends or close family to switch. But I don't think my landlord or my distant relatives will install Signal just because I don't want to use WhatsApp anymore.
- melomal 6y ago
  What about SMS? It's free for most plans.
  - Jtsummers 6y ago
    SMS/MMS don't work or are unreliable for international communication. SMS/MMS, historically, have been unreliable cross-carrier domestically in the US. Many cheaper Android phones, especially, seemed to be particularly poor players with SMS/MMS group chats. SMS/MMS doesn't guarantee message delivery order (which can lead to some comical exchanges when the first split of the message shows up a day after the last split, but also obnoxious). MMS, depending on phone, isn't particularly useful for a lot of multimedia or mixed content messages (not just text or simple and small images). WhatsApp is free on carriers in many countries (including large portions of Asia and South America), contrasting with other messaging platforms which use a standard data plan. It delivers messages reliably, group messages just work, and it works properly for mixed content messages. And data is (relatively) cheap in most countries where WhatsApp isn't free.
    - melomal 6y ago

JshWright 6y ago

Also missing a "I'm not switching because I've never needed to use WhatsApp" option. My social circle has been on Signal for years and WhatsApp never caught on.

hoorayimhelping 6y ago
Nobody cares that you and your crew are using a WhatsApp alternative, which is why there's no option for you to signal that you're using an alternative. This is for people who want to switch and are looking for suggestions, not for people who are trying to show off that they don't need to switch.
- fahadkhan 6y ago
  I find it interesting to that people don't use WhatsApp at all. Many posts here are claiming not using WhatsApp is impossible. Grandparent's experience demonstrate that it is.
  - exhilaration 6y ago
    It depends on the country you're in and what country your extended family is in. Whatsapp absolutely dominates in South Asia and South America. You can see a full map here: https://www.messengerpeople.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/07/statistik-messenger-apps-top-by-country-en-stand-2019-09.png https://www.messengerpeople.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/07/s... Most Americans, for example, have no need for it. I feel like iMessage is the dominant messaging platform in the U.S.
    - fareed79 6y ago
      iMessage is iOS right? because the link you post shows facebook messenger is strongest in the US.
      - nomel 6y ago
        > "Based on Google Play Store rank" That diagram is for Android only, so I wouldn't read too much into it.

jbotz 6y ago

Well, I don't know where parent is located, but here in Brazil they are pretty much right. Everybody has WhatsApp... it's assumed that if you have a phone you have WhatsApp. A lot of financial transactions are conducted by doing a bank transfer and then sending the receipt via WhatsApp. The schools send essential messages to parents via WhatsApp. During lockdowns, stores were taking delivery orders via WhatsApp. What's more, several cell phone operators' plans include unlimited WhatsApp, but only a few GB of other data... meaning when your data limits are reached you can still use WhatsApp for the rest of the month, but not i.e. Signal or Telegram. That makes is rather hard to convince people to switch. So yeah, pretty damn close to critical infrastructure. I'm still going to delete my account and see what happens, but unlike the siblings here I can't disagree with parent, at least for Brazil. [Edit] When I delete my account I'm going to lose old conversations, but that doesn't bother me anymore because I already recently lost them once when I switched from Android to iOS... WhatsApp has no way of keeping your history in that case. And otherwise there's really no friction to deleting an account, since you can always recreate it.

gst 6y ago
> [Edit] When I delete my account I'm going to lose old conversations, but that doesn't bother me anymore because I already recently lost them once when I switched from Android to iOS... WhatsApp has no way of keeping your history in that case. And otherwise there's really no friction to deleting an account, since you can always recreate it. There are several third-party tools that allow to convert the history from Android to iOS. I recently switched and was able to keep all of my history.
- hnick 6y ago
  Mind naming the one you used? We'll have a spare iPhone soon when my wife upgrades and it might be time for me to go back to iOS after many years. I'm just a bit worried about some apps and things that might be harder to migrate like this.
incrudible 6y ago
I like to think the problem is that "the nerds" have failed the rest of the people. People used to listen to us about computer stuff. Then computers became usable without us. Then smartphones arrived. We gladly were relieved of our obligations, but also of our influence. It's too late to go back. People are already used to the trade-offs, convenience rules above all. People may be "sort of concerned" about privacy, but they shrug it off. If privacy was high-value, any privacy-conscious competitor would've taken the market by storm.

ianai 6y ago

No social media today qualify as “critical social infrastructure."

tim333 6y ago

There's also the keep WhatsApp for legacy contacts but use Signal or some such for new ones option. Personally I'm probably a bit odd here in that I don't mind facebook having my info. So they may show me a personalised ad - big deal.

marc_io 6y ago
This is much more important than personal preference. This is detrimental to the flow of information in entire countries, no kidding. Each person can contribute to end this – or not.

rglullis 6y ago

Last I checked, my phone and my computer do not require me to use only messaging app. WhatsApp is "critical" now only now due to its network effects, but you can transition away to something else. Right now I have maybe a dozen friends and family members on my matrix server. I helped them set up the app, configured their communick accounts, made a few video calls to ensure it was working, etc. Current step is to help my wife to do the same with her friends. Slowly but steadily, we are moving our communication network away from WhatsApp and into Matrix. Each one that we move makes WhatsApp less "critical" and makes us more free from monopolistic assholes. We don't need the Government to control any of that, in fact I believe that waiting for the government to do anything is not going to achieve anything.

redkoala 6y ago
One issue is the fractured nature of alternatives would mean limited network effects, if one group moves to Matrix, and another to Signal, and another to Telegram, that means juggling multiple alternatives depending on the groups one is part of.
- rglullis 6y ago
  While less than ideal, even in that case Matrix has an advantage: bridges. Matrix servers can be setup with bridges to allow communication with other protocols, so matrix users can reach telegram or signal contacts without switching clients.
mattl 6y ago
Nobody is going to get their whole family circle to move to Matrix.
- rglullis 6y ago
  Not with that attitude, you won't. ;) Seriously, though. See my other responses. Switching does not need to be an atomic operation, also learn about Matrix bridges.

game_the0ry 6y ago

Try not to get mad please, but ... > Where is the "Don't switch" option? Because as much as I hate that Facebook bought them, they're part of what I would call "critical social infrastructure." No such thing as "critical social infrastructure." Could you live without whatsapp? Yes. Then by definition it is not critical. > Asking to leave WhatsApp is like cancelling your contract with your ISP and going offline just because you don't like the company. Not at all. Some areas in the US don't have choice of what ISP they can use, but you have many good choices for messaging apps. I am growing tiresome of people complaining (on HN, of all places) about how evil facebook and google are but will not go as far as cancelling facebook or using duckduckgo for search, or protonmail for email. Folks, if you are not happy, you have choices and they are free and very convenient. The services you complain about using for free are not the problem, you're just lazy. EDIT - you folks in the replies are basically proving my point. Instead of taking ownership over the freedom of choice that you have, you would rather make excuses to justify lack of initiative. That's not a healthy or happy frame of mind to box yourself in, and it gives too much of your emotional influence to the platforms. Like you folks are seriously comparing a messaging app to ISPs and heating in london...really? Give me a break, snowflake.

GregorBrandt 6y ago
Have you travelled or lived in central or South America? WhatsApp is critical social infrastructure. WhatsApp is used more than telephones. For everything. Businesses advertise their WhatsApp contact before, or even omitting, a telephone number. People you meet want your WhatsApp for communication, not your telephone number. WhatsApp has become critical to these countries as the primary form of communication.
nindalf 6y ago
> Could you live without whatsapp? Yes. Then by definition it is not critical. Can I live without heating in London? Yes I wouldn't die without it. But without heating it's extremely uncomfortable. I'd say it is critical for me because "dying/not dying" is not the criteria for deciding.
eldaisfish 6y ago
Your analogies are very poor and all over the place. Can you live without electricity? Sure, if you are willing to severely decrease your quality of life. Your ISP analogy is again flawed while the OPs' is reasonably relevant. A social communication app has a critical part to being relevant to use - the social part. It's a chicken and egg problem because if people don't use Signal or Telegram or wall, the app serves no useful purpose. The mere existence of a choice does not mean that all choices are equally useful or even relevant. This argument of "you're lazy" is (ironically) incredibly lazy and often results in software that is unreasonably hard to use - again, an analogy that i hope folks here would understand. Whatsapp works, is simple to use and has sufficient users to be critical infrastructure. Using "laziness" is a cop out. If something isn't broken, don't fix it.

holstvoogd 6y ago

I feel ya, deleting whatsapp will not be great for my social life. Neither was deleting facebook, at least at the time when it was still being used. Whatsapp has inserted itself into the social fabric as a benevolent offering and now that we are all locked in we get what we payed for. But that is all the more reason to get rid of it. Of course this makes life complicated. But if we don't make these hard choices and 'sacrifices', it will never stop. They will keep eroding away at our privacy and freedom. It will only become harder the longer we wait. This kind of things will keep happening though as long as we allow monopolies and closed platforms. We should really be more careful with accepting these companies into our lives.

slothtrop 6y ago

As someone who's never used such a service, help me understand what's so critical about it. Can't people just send SMS? Aren't people on fb anyway, which can be accessed with a container on Firefox? EDIT: got some answers re SMS. Fine, though that doesn't explain why there is so much overlap/redundancy with social media applications. At a glance, it appears I could do the very same things (groups, multimedia) messaging people on facebook without having to install an app, and if people are on whatsapp they're almost 100% on facebook. Apparently the "critical" nature of this is the facility of sending high rates of pictures and videos to others. I suspect mere FOMO owing to group-chat being localized there is enough to keep some people from cutting the cord, not the ability to communicate to multiple people in itself. People really are addicted to each other.

r007c0n7r0l 6y ago
WhatsApp allows Group Conversations and Sharing Media (Pictures, Videos, Files, Audio Files, GPS Location, Video Calls). SMS and MMS can not cope with that in large quantity like 100mbs of video files and hundred of pictures, because data is cheaper than MMS costs. This Privacy policy change whill allow Facebook, who bought WhatsApp, to extract all these data for their own purpose, before it was not the case.
- slothtrop 6y ago
  Can't all this be done on facebook?
  - Phobophobia 6y ago
    You used to be able to use WhatsApp and not have a Facebook account (for the obvious reasons).
  - baq 6y ago
    that's the point - it isn't facebook, except it is.
sbergot 6y ago
People use whatsapp groups a lot. Also sharing images doesn't work well with SMS.

lwhi 6y ago

Maybe we should be closing FB accounts instead.

zecg 6y ago

I found out it's pretty much not so dramatic when I left FB and WA in 2017. The people I communicate with have mostly accepted also having Signal.

mcv 6y ago

> "Asking to leave WhatsApp is like cancelling your contract with your ISP and going offline just because you don't like the company." You can get a contract with a different ISP. That's what this is about: not doing without messaging completely, but switching to a different messaging service. My family switched to Signal, and we're quite happy there. I still have Whatsapp because the schools of my children use it.

deleted 6y ago

[deleted]

dustinmoris 6y ago

> they're part of what I would call "critical social infrastructure." Really? That seems a depressingly low bar for what you consider "critical". If WhatsApp would disappear tomorrow, I think my social infrastructure would not suffer at all. I still have a smartphone with hundreds of other apps, including iMessage, SMS, and so on.. Besides that, I only consider real human interaction as critical. > Asking to leave WhatsApp is like cancelling your contract with your ISP and going offline just because you don't like the company. Sounds kind of depressing again. Not sure where you live, but most countries in the world have more than one ISP. I have switched ISP often in my lifetime. Never was it an issue, nor a massive burden and it has not caused me to go offline at all.

sevrinsky 6y ago
Suggesting iMessage -- available only on Apple products -- as a alternative to avoid WhatsApp lock-in has to be the most ironic thing I've seen today.

deeblering4 6y ago

Why is this the top voted comment? Leaving WhatsApp is nothing at all like cutting off your internet connection. It is just one out of literally dozens of available text messaging apps, and it is owned by one of the least ethical companies that exists today.

TheRealSteel 6y ago
"It is just one out of literally dozens of available text messaging apps" It baffles me people are still saying this. You can only message people that are using the SAME messaging app as you. I can't just up and switch apps and expect my 30+ friends and relatives and housemates and coworkers to switch with me!
- 51Cards 6y ago
  Not if you are content to send SMS/MMS messages. I text all of my friends, clients, and family networks and avoid propritary platforms and none of them have ever complained.
- boogies 6y ago
  > You can only message people that are using the SAME messaging app as you. No, Matrix supports bridging with about two dozen protocols,¹ many of which support multiple clients (at least 7: IRC, RSS, Email, SMS, Mastodon, libpurple —actually a library supporting multiple protocols including IRC and XMPP— and Twitter) — some of which have dozens if not hundreds of clients. ¹IRC, Slack, RSS, Gitter, Discord, RocketChat, iMessage, Facebook Messenger, Email, SMS, Mastodon, libpurple, GroupMe, Skype, WeChat, Tox, Mumble, Twitter, Mattermost, Keybase (Edit: this one was discontinued), Google Hangouts, Telegram, WhatsApp, Instagram, and Signal — https://matrix.org/bridges/ https://matrix.org/bridges/
  - upofadown 6y ago
    The linked to page does not mention XMPP...
    - 6y ago

agd 6y ago

> Critical social infrastructure At least for the UK, this is not at all the case. It’s perfectly feasible to socialise and do business without going anywhere near WhatsApp.

TheRealSteel 6y ago
I live in the UK and this is absolutely 100% not true, you cannot function in society here without WhatsApp. In Australia the same is true for Facebook. In every country there's something, and almost all of them outside China are owned by Facebook.
- agd 6y ago
  I find this incredible to hear. I know many people who live very sociable lives who don’t have WhatsApp or Facebook. And these are not techno privacy geeks but regular people across different age groups. I have to strongly disagree based on personal evidence that ‘you cannot function socially in society without WhatsApp’.
- WorkLobster 6y ago
  "Cannot function in society" is something of an exaggeration. I have never used WhatsApp and never really suffered for it. The only issue I noticed is needing to check in with individual members of the board game group and rock climbing group every now and then to see if there are plans.
- jfk13 6y ago
  I also live in the UK, but I have never used WhatsApp. People's requirements and experiences differ greatly. WhatsApp may be essential to you, but it's not essential to everyone.
pbhjpbhj 6y ago
[UK] All the school chat for my kids, both for secondary schoolers and for us as parents, is on WhatsApp. Amongst my family WhatsApp is the primary means of group communication.
6y ago

TheRealSteel 6y ago

Yeah, if this is a poll for which is the best service to switch to for the rare instance when you have a choice, then okay. If this is a poll about what I intend to do? Nothing, facebook has me by the balls and will for years to come. Maybe certain small groups or individuals will be willing to switch with me, but it's not like I'm uninstalling WhatsApp any time soon. I'll just link my comment from the other article about the Whatsapp changes: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25672109 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25672109 Plus I'm sure they've linked all the data they can in their backend already. It's hard to believe the notice we all got this morning was really going to realistically change very much of anything.

tomatocracy 6y ago

I guess the question is does switching piecemeal allow for some of the benefits of switching wholesale? Especially, can I restrict which parts of my address book (and other data) get shared with WhatsApp? Then I could communicate with people who are on another platform using that platform but keep using WhatsApp for people who haven't moved over. Hopefully over time there would be a complete migration.

jcul 6y ago

All we can do is try. If we do nothing then the problem only gets worse. I considered just accepting it and moving on, but I've thought again and I'm trying to get as many contacts onto Signal as I can. At least there will be another option and as much as I love matrix I think Signal is the best balance between user friendliness and privacy. I made the mistake before of giving multiple options which just scares non-tech people off, so now I'm just pushing Signal.

jrockway 6y ago

I've never used WhatsApp nor have any of my friends ever mentioned it as a method they'd like to use to chat with me. I typically send normal SMS messages. The impression that I get is that WhatsApp is not "a thing" in the US?

tobib 6y ago

> Asking to leave WhatsApp is like cancelling your contract with your ISP and going offline just because you don't like the company. Not "going offline" since people are obviously looking for an alternative. More like switching your ISP because you don't like the company.

Xelbair 6y ago

what about option "don't need to switch"? because i never used whatsapp in the first place

jorangreef 6y ago

Not really. These things go slow at first and then all of a sudden. I think Facebook have underestimated the resilience of their network effect to an ultimatum like this. Integrity is a force multiplier, and when you set your integrity to zero it doesn't take long before the rest of your asset is also zero. Anything times zero is zero. Even WhatsApp. How the mighty fall.

blendergeek 6y ago

> Asking to leave WhatsApp is like cancelling your contract with your ISP and going offline just because you don't like the company. If I choose to stop using my ISP, I have no need to "go offline". I can simply switch ISPs and I still get the exact same internet. This is why we must not fall for this "critical social infrastructure" trap. No one company deserves our business. We can and should go elsewhere. Messaging should be like the internet. If I don't like my messaging provider, I should be able to switch and still message everybody. Ideally, I would be able to bring my identifier with me. Luckily, SMS already provides this. I therefore recommend old-fashioned SMS/MMS for messaging. If you want something more "modern", I would recommend Matrix, as it is the only "modern" messaging system that wants to allow people to switch providers while still messaging the same people.

ColinWright 6y ago
> Matrix ... the only "modern" messaging system that wants to allow people to switch providers while still messaging the same people. But does it really do so in practice? If I'm using Element/Matrix and a colleague is using WhatsApp, or Signal, or Telegram, or Briar. Can they reliably send me messages? Can I reliably send them messages? I've been told it's possible, but more than one person I know has tried and failed. Is it common? Reliable? Possible? Or theoretical, and unachievable in practice? Have you done it?
- blendergeek 6y ago
  > But does it really do so in practice? If I'm using Element/Matrix and a colleague is using WhatsApp, or Signal, or Telegram, or Briar. Can they reliably send me messages? Can I reliably send them messages? Matrix is not the provider. Matrix is the protocol/idea. Element is both an app and a service. What is common, reliable, and achievable in practice: I decide I no longer like New Vector (who run the matrix.org home server). I switch to Purism's matrix server. I no longer am doing business with New Vector, yet I can still chat with everybody that is using New Vector's matrix service.
  - ColinWright 6y ago

agumonkey 6y ago

And what about stop smartphone messenging ?

aloukissas 6y ago

It's more like canceling your contract with your ISP, but you don't live in the US and you have options wrt to ISP and you have plenty others to choose from :)

IG_Semmelweiss 6y ago

This is true in Ecuador as well. I was shocked. This process was turbocharged by COVID19 Most unemoloyed people with no steady income turned to last-mile delivery of all kinds of random goods and services... All done via whatsapp Its frictionless. Like a website chatbot. Except its free and you can do it on the move. I dont think it will take off here becuase businesses here have built web infrastructure for e-commerce. Whatsapp is to ecommerce what smartphones where to connectivity. 3rd world countries skipped fixed wires and laptops and went straight to smartphones over air This is the same process.

oarabbus_ 6y ago

It's not possible to be Indian and not use WhatsApp, assuming you want to have any contact with your family and friends whatsoever.

hordeallergy 6y ago

You want change but without making any effort?

dstroot 6y ago

I ask this as a non-Whatsapp user. I have read the comments and I understand in some countries (Brazil, Netherlands, etc.) that Whatsapp is the main tool for person to person and person to business communications. What I can't figure out is why did it displace "plain SMS" or other tools. What drove the adoption? I'd love to hear more about that - was Whatsapp just the first mover?

airstrike 6y ago
Free VoIP, first and foremost. I remember when my dad told me his cousin from Venezuela suggested an app to him that allowed him to make free calls to anyone who also has it. I told him that was probably not right and he might have downloaded malware on his Android... Turns out he was right and the app took Brazil by storm On top of that, media, voice clips and cross-platform compatibility.
- jolmg 6y ago
  Yeah, some countries don't charge premiums for long-distance and roaming between each other, but among those that do charge such premiums, this would be another killer feature.
jolmg 6y ago
> What I can't figure out is why did it displace "plain SMS" or other tools. SMS was unreliable, at least back when it was used. It was common for someone to receive it hours later or at least many minutes later, when it was too late. Informing someone you just got the message they told you about in-person a while back was a common occurrence. You also don't know when a person received your message, so you would opt to call them anyways if they take too long to reply with something even if they were just busy. Basically, the 2 checkmarks on each message is the killer feature. Spam is also a problem with SMS. Email is something that never really took off in mobile devices. I suppose everyone saw it as the same thing as SMS, with the same issues. Perhaps worse, since an email client needed to poll the server for new messages. SMS is something people did since before smartphones. Dumbphones didn't commonly have real support for email. Also, email on a mobile device meant you had to setup the mail client, and you didn't have to setup anything with SMS, just give people your number.

blacklight 6y ago

I understand the social lock-in factor, but there's no technological reason why people couldn't migrate to another app. Messaging apps, for 99% of the people, are only supposed to deliver text and media from A to B. It's not hard in 2021 to develop such an app, even with E2E encryption and 2FA, even for a CS graduate. I'm appalled by the scarcity of real alternatives to WhatsApp, considering that a messaging app is a piece of software with low technological barriers. The solution seems quite clear to me. Force messaging apps to expose a public API, so that messages can easily be delivered regardless of the client used on both ends - XMPP used to provide exactly that, but both Google and Facebook decided to use it as a starting point and then gradually deviate from it with their own closed implementations. If one platform decides to bully its users with "let me read your messages so I can send you better ads or leave the platform", users would simply leave that platform without losing their contacts.

croes 6y ago

That's what you should bdo. If you don't like the company don't buy from them. Especially when many alternatives exist. It's just a choice to use WhatsApp not a necessity. Just remember MySpace.

soupson 6y ago

There is a middle ground between taking your ball and going home and playing by the new rules without complaint. Adding another app — my vote goes to Signal - and making a lot of noise on WhatsApp is one option. If I recall correctly, WhatsApp has statuses. Changing yours to “Keeping WhatsApp for business transactions only — find me on Signal for private chat” is one idea. The people on this board have the power to move their friends away from terrible software. Use it.

nmlnn 6y ago

Do people not realize they can run more than 1 messenger app at a time?

maximuscoolimus 6y ago
The mental overhead of switching between - and keeping track of - messaging apps shouldn't be ignored. Speaking from experience, I have a hard time remembering which specific platform is preferred by specific contacts. It's a minor annoyance, but it's always present. How many messenger apps do you run, and how many is too many? For me, the limit is 2. Note that currently I am forced to keep 5 different apps to keep in touch with my contacts.

1vuio0pswjnm7 6y ago

"Asking to leave WhatsApp is like cancelling your contract with yout ISP and going offline just because you don't like the company." Hopefully the reason this is at the top is not this sentence. This hallucinatory idea is exactly what Facebook PR, a.k.a. "damage control", wants people to believe. You have no contract with Facebook. You pay them nothing. There is no legal recourse whatsoever. You cannot enforce "your end of the bargain" because Facebook undertakes no obligations to you. Say what you want about the quality of your internet or cellular provider's service, etc., or how much you hate a company, but the fact is they have to fulfill their contractual obligations and provide service, they cannot just do whatever they want, whenever they want, as Facebook can. If the internet/cellular provider does not deliver, then there is no Facebook. Whereas Facebook could disappear if their advertisers stop paying and the internet would still be here, because people would still be paying for internet access, and internet users would still use the internet to do all the same things they do now, and more. Practically speaking, you may treat a tech company like a common carrier, like a telephone/internet/cellular provider. After all to the user it may seem no different. It is accessed through a "phone" and it seems to work like the service they pay for through an ISP or cellular provider. But the minute you say this is like a "contract" you are submitting to pure delusion. You have no contract with Facebook as a user and you pay nothing. You're a product not a customer. Facebook has essentially zero exposure to liability from user complaints and that is why you are reading so many complaints about them, e.g., on HN. The best a user can do is rant into the aether and pound sand. There is no contract to enforce! Then there is the absurdity of pretending that access to one company's computers is equivalent to access to the entire internet. This is like saying cancelling your subscription to AOL is like cancelling your account with your ISP. Today, no one is naive enough to equate AOL with the internet, as people once did. But Facebook believes people are naive enough to equate "Facebook" with "the internet". No doubt the AOL phenomena is a running joke at Facebook. The more things "change" the more they stay the same. Do whatever you want, but let's refrain from propagating illusions that tech companies want people to believe.

officeplant 6y ago
Given how integrated Whatsapp is in many non-US markets, their statement is spot on. It has nothing to do with propagating the lies of a tech company. It's about being stuck in a society that has moved to a single platform because it made itself available as the easiest method long before facebook bought it up. See Also: Weechat in china, LINE in Japan. Living in the US I considering myself lucky that I'm not locked into a singular platform for communcation, payments, services, etc like many others.

bassman9000 6y ago

Asking to leave WhatsApp is like cancelling your contract with your ISP and going offline The OP is literally a poll of other services. In any case, it would be to cancel with your ISP to go to another ISP.