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Everybody says this until there’s an alternative. There have been several alternatives, and people didn’t switch.

by xmcp123 9mo ago

zarzavat 9mo ago
The alternatives suck. WhatsApp strikes a good balance of usability and security. Telegram is too insecure (no E2E by default). Signal is too secure (no chat exports). Nobody has even bothered to make an app that stands toe-to-toe with WhatsApp, even without the network effects.
- tonyhart7 9mo ago
  You literally mention 2 of the biggest whatsapp competitor and you have audacity to says "Nobody has even bothered to make an app that stands toe-to-toe with WhatsApp"
  - expedition32 9mo ago
    Besides what WhatsApp does on a technical level can be fairly easily replicated. Getting the 2 billion users is the hard part. But that is marketing not coding.
    - chii 9mo ago
      > But that is marketing not coding. it's the network effect. If normies who don't care for things (which is most people tbh) don't decide to switch, do you, as a techie/early adopter, just turn off whatsapp and disconnect with your normie friends? You are unlikely to be important enough in the friend group to force a switch, not to mention that this needs to happen enmass for a swing in the network effect to happen.
      - AnthonyMouse 9mo ago
        Being implacably stubborn is underrated. People can trivially have two messaging apps on their phone, which means they can all still contact you while using WhatsApp with other people. Then they all slowly end up with Signal on their phone, at which point who needs WhatsApp at all? "The reasonable man adapts himself to the world; the unreasonable man persists in trying to adapt the world to himself. Therefore all progress depends on the unreasonable man."
        arter45 9mo ago
        Yes, you can have two messaging apps, but people will have a “main app” which is typically the one used by important people in their life (family, partner,…) and/or the one used by most people. Meanwhile, if you all use two apps, everytime you want to check up on a friend you have to check two apps. Imagine all your friends love pizza, as do you. Suddenly you decide sushi is better so, naturally, you tell your friends to try out sushi at the next dinner. Assuming some of your friends are not absolutely against sushi, yes, you’ll have that sushi dinner. But what if they don’t like it that much? They will revert to pizza or accept sushi, occasionally, when they want to see you, while still prefering pizza for all other interactions. There has to be a perceived advantage for changing habits. If few people see the benefits of Signal or other non-Whatsapp apps, they will not change their minds.
        AnthonyMouse 9mo ago
        > Meanwhile, if you all use two apps, everytime you want to check up on a friend you have to check two apps. You just have to check the one they use. Also, both of the apps would support notifications when something has happened in that app. > But what if they don’t like it that much? There is no real advantage of WhatsApp over Signal except that some people are already using it, and a significant privacy disadvantage. Once someone already has Signal then the advantage of WhatsApp is gone and only the disadvantage remains.
        arter45 9mo ago
        Everything is a trade-off. Signal trades some decreased convenience (for example in terms of backup) for some added security. Whatsapp has more “cosmetic” features (polls,…). If you value privacy over convenience and other features Signal is a great choice. If you value convenience and other features over privacy Whatsapp is a great choice. I think it’s safe to say that different people have different priorities which result in different choices.
        AnthonyMouse 9mo ago
    - zarzavat 9mo ago
      If it's so easy to replicate, why isn't there any other app that has replicated it? Signal is the closest but they fall short because they prioritize privacy over features. Which is their choice to make, but it means they have ruled themselves out from going mainstream. If you're not targeting feature parity with WhatsApp then you have zero chance of supplanting it. Telegram prioritises idk the FSB spying on your chats, that app gives me the creeps.
- computerfriend 9mo ago
  Signal has exports.
  - neves 9mo ago
    Which non hacker news user exports chats? I'm the only person I know who ever did it.
    - popol12 9mo ago
      They released cloud backups recently and I believe they are also working on manual exports on iOS too
- bornfreddy 9mo ago
  Signal allows you to do local chat export for backup, as opposed to WhatsApp (which only allows backup to Google account on android). That's actually my biggest complaint against WhatsApp and Viber: why don't you allow local backup, or backup to something I control?
  - j1elo 9mo ago
    Correction, in case you're interested: Whatsapp does (and has always done) allow local file backups. I know because they are just there on the storage: Android/media/com.whatsapp/WhatsApp/Backups/ I also know because for many years I was VERY cloud-averse so for several iterations of smartphone purchases I did migrate my chat backups between phones (plain copy-paste of files with a computer) without issues.
    - bornfreddy 9mo ago
      That sounds interesting, though a short search revealed this method is not very user friendly [0]. Still, if it works... Thank you! [0] https://old.reddit.com/r/whatsapp/comments/11oiwse/working_as_of_march_2023_method_for_restoring_a/ https://old.reddit.com/r/whatsapp/comments/11oiwse/working_a...

Everybody says this until there’s an alternative. There have been several alternatives, and people didn’t switch.

by xmcp123 9mo ago

Everybody says this until there’s an alternative. There have been several alternatives, and people didn’t switch.

The alternatives suck. WhatsApp strikes a good balance of usability and security. Telegram is too insecure (no E2E by default). Signal is too secure (no chat exports). Nobody has even bothered to make an app that stands toe-to-toe with WhatsApp, even without the network effects.

tonyhart7 9mo ago
You literally mention 2 of the biggest whatsapp competitor and you have audacity to says "Nobody has even bothered to make an app that stands toe-to-toe with WhatsApp"
- expedition32 9mo ago
  Besides what WhatsApp does on a technical level can be fairly easily replicated. Getting the 2 billion users is the hard part. But that is marketing not coding.
  - chii 9mo ago
    > But that is marketing not coding. it's the network effect. If normies who don't care for things (which is most people tbh) don't decide to switch, do you, as a techie/early adopter, just turn off whatsapp and disconnect with your normie friends? You are unlikely to be important enough in the friend group to force a switch, not to mention that this needs to happen enmass for a swing in the network effect to happen.
    - AnthonyMouse 9mo ago
      Being implacably stubborn is underrated. People can trivially have two messaging apps on their phone, which means they can all still contact you while using WhatsApp with other people. Then they all slowly end up with Signal on their phone, at which point who needs WhatsApp at all? "The reasonable man adapts himself to the world; the unreasonable man persists in trying to adapt the world to himself. Therefore all progress depends on the unreasonable man."
      - arter45 9mo ago
        Yes, you can have two messaging apps, but people will have a “main app” which is typically the one used by important people in their life (family, partner,…) and/or the one used by most people. Meanwhile, if you all use two apps, everytime you want to check up on a friend you have to check two apps. Imagine all your friends love pizza, as do you. Suddenly you decide sushi is better so, naturally, you tell your friends to try out sushi at the next dinner. Assuming some of your friends are not absolutely against sushi, yes, you’ll have that sushi dinner. But what if they don’t like it that much? They will revert to pizza or accept sushi, occasionally, when they want to see you, while still prefering pizza for all other interactions. There has to be a perceived advantage for changing habits. If few people see the benefits of Signal or other non-Whatsapp apps, they will not change their minds.
        AnthonyMouse 9mo ago
        > Meanwhile, if you all use two apps, everytime you want to check up on a friend you have to check two apps. You just have to check the one they use. Also, both of the apps would support notifications when something has happened in that app. > But what if they don’t like it that much? There is no real advantage of WhatsApp over Signal except that some people are already using it, and a significant privacy disadvantage. Once someone already has Signal then the advantage of WhatsApp is gone and only the disadvantage remains.
        arter45 9mo ago
        Everything is a trade-off. Signal trades some decreased convenience (for example in terms of backup) for some added security. Whatsapp has more “cosmetic” features (polls,…). If you value privacy over convenience and other features Signal is a great choice. If you value convenience and other features over privacy Whatsapp is a great choice. I think it’s safe to say that different people have different priorities which result in different choices.
        AnthonyMouse 9mo ago
  - zarzavat 9mo ago
    If it's so easy to replicate, why isn't there any other app that has replicated it? Signal is the closest but they fall short because they prioritize privacy over features. Which is their choice to make, but it means they have ruled themselves out from going mainstream. If you're not targeting feature parity with WhatsApp then you have zero chance of supplanting it. Telegram prioritises idk the FSB spying on your chats, that app gives me the creeps.
computerfriend 9mo ago
Signal has exports.
- neves 9mo ago
  Which non hacker news user exports chats? I'm the only person I know who ever did it.
  - popol12 9mo ago
    They released cloud backups recently and I believe they are also working on manual exports on iOS too
bornfreddy 9mo ago
Signal allows you to do local chat export for backup, as opposed to WhatsApp (which only allows backup to Google account on android). That's actually my biggest complaint against WhatsApp and Viber: why don't you allow local backup, or backup to something I control?
- j1elo 9mo ago
  Correction, in case you're interested: Whatsapp does (and has always done) allow local file backups. I know because they are just there on the storage: Android/media/com.whatsapp/WhatsApp/Backups/ I also know because for many years I was VERY cloud-averse so for several iterations of smartphone purchases I did migrate my chat backups between phones (plain copy-paste of files with a computer) without issues.
  - bornfreddy 9mo ago
    That sounds interesting, though a short search revealed this method is not very user friendly [0]. Still, if it works... Thank you! [0] https://old.reddit.com/r/whatsapp/comments/11oiwse/working_as_of_march_2023_method_for_restoring_a/ https://old.reddit.com/r/whatsapp/comments/11oiwse/working_a...