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Just stop using Meta products. It's really not as hard as it seems. Nobody needs FB to communicate with friends and family. Send texts or emails or use your pho
by drnick1 5mo ago
Just stop using Meta products. It's really not as hard as it seems. Nobody needs FB to communicate with friends and family. Send texts or emails or use your phone.
- Starman_Jones 5mo agoThe hardest part about not using Meta products is deciding not to use meta products. When I stopped using Facebook, I had resigned myself to spending a lot of time and effort to stay in touch with my friends and family. As it turns out, all I had to do was mention that I was using Signal, and the people closest to me, then pretty close to me, then kinda close to me all started using that too. The network effect cuts both ways.
- ryandrake 5mo agoIt’s amazing how strong the Meta FOMO is. I stopped using Facebook over 10 years ago and never even opened Instagram or WhatsApp, and I really am not missing out on anything in life. My actual friends know how to contact me and they do! And it’s really not that hard to say “Sorry I don’t have Whats App, just call me at xxx-xxx-xxxx.” If someone is prepared to not be my friend because they only want to communicate via a Meta app, then I don’t see why I’d want them as a friend.
- deleted 5mo ago[deleted]
- doom2 5mo agoThe annoying thing is how many businesses and communities rely on Meta platforms instead of their own websites and sometimes it's the only way to contact them. If I want to check if the small neighborhood grocery has something in stock? No phone, only Instagram DMs. When I was on vacation abroad and wanted to see if an out of the way farmers market was still happening despite rain? Only Facebook. The good thing is that it isn't everywhere: Taiwan, Japan, and China usually have apps like Line or WeChat as options. In Europe there's more usage of WhatsApp (which is still Meta owned but also not social media). But in the US (and countries in the Americas), I still see a heavy reliance on Instagram and Facebook.
- drnick1 5mo ago> want to check if the small neighborhood grocery has something in stock? No phone, only Instagram DMs. You can use a throwaway account for that or other things such as FB Marketplace. It's not ideal because it generates traffic on FB, but it's better than handing over all your private communications to Zuckerberg.
- dmje 5mo agoYeh but you can’t because they need phone validation, no?
- drnick1 5mo agoBack when I last used FB you could create an account tied to an email address. I don't know if things have changed since, but throwaway phone numbers are also a thing.
- erremerre 5mo agoNot sure what country are you from. Last time I tried to make a throwaway account to sell something in Facebook Marketplace I was welcome with a submit picture to test if you are real which when uploaded with a IA generated picture got blocked.
- wickedsight 5mo ago> The annoying thing is how many businesses and communities rely on Meta platforms During local elections over here (Netherlands), it was impossible to find any info from local parties outside of Facebook. Those parties are also the biggest, usually. I ended up voting for the one party that had a website with their plans for that exact reason.
- barbazoo 5mo agoI feel blessed to just be able to say no and move in. Not worth it. And nothing will change until some people make the first step. In every community.
- itake 5mo agoMy issues with Signal are two: 1/ meta products trigger organic conversations. People post on Instagram and Facebook that they’re traveling and I will reach out to them if I’m close by. People don’t use Signal that way. 2/ the Facebook groups are very useful for local communities. As a traveler, I reach out to Expat groups for feedback.
- barbazoo 5mo agoRight. If being on meta is what keeps the "friendship" going and leaving the platform would have negative effect on the relationship, then on my opinion it wasn't a friendship to begin with. But that might just be my outdated view of how humans work.
- alex1138 5mo agoActually it... is but not (just) for the reasons people give (social utility) You delete a FB acct? It reactivates. Fun! Almost like the company is built off fraud
- Iuz 5mo agoI'm thinking about it, but WhatsApp has a real hold on the Brazilian population. Removing it would mean losing the primary way my family and many people I know communicate. It’s ubiquitous here, sadly.
- derwiki 5mo agoI don’t know about other places, but in SF, everything around schools is coordinated over WhatsApp—you’d be really doing your children a disservice to opt out. And I hate it. I had deactivated all my Meta accounts but reactivated WhatsApp because of school stuff.
- Loughla 5mo agoTell your school board to use a dedicated messaging platform built for schools. Cite privacy laws. That's what I did, and it worked. Unless you're talking about parent groups. Because then you're fucked. Every parent group everywhere uses Facebook or Whatsapp and don't care that not everybody uses it. You will be excluded.
- ryandrake 5mo agoI’ve gotten a lot of mileage out of the philosophy: “you’re not missing out on anything worthwhile by being excluded by people who want to exclude you.” Don’t voluntarily interact with people who make “uses a particular app” a condition of that interaction.
- derwiki 5mo agoWhich privacy laws?
- grvdrm 5mo agoI assume parents. Not actual schools. Same situation here on East Coast. School uses ParentSquare but so much coordination is over iMesssage and WhatsApp.
- carlosjobim 5mo agoThere are lots of other important uses for these platforms. For the down voters: Such as finding local business information or events in your community, and tons of other stuff which isn't anywhere else. Facebook + Instagram already has more current information than the rest of the web combined.
- TFNA 5mo agoYou are years behind. It was in 2016 that, when traveling and wanting to exchange contacts with cool local people I met, I first began to get the response “My e-mail address? I don’t have email.” Already then many younger people were only on social media, and it was expected that you would exchange those contacts. And some countries never had the email moment at all, so even older people don’t use it. Ditto for phones, if you mean the PSTN – as time goes on, fewer and fewer people have ever really used that. When people around the world are communicating via their smartphones with a phone-number-based protocol, it’s overwhelmingly WhatsApp, and guess who owns that?
- apsurd 5mo agoWhat's actually being said is that these people are not your friends/family and probably shouldn't be. That definitely sounds harsher than intended. It's a meditation really. Nobody needs FB and Instagram. (please read as a meditation)
- TFNA 5mo agoEveryone is free to define “need” and who their friends should be as strictly as they want, because, sure, some people could become total hermits. But it’s not going to strike most people as a reasonable definition. You mention “FB and Instagram”, and I haven’t used either in a decade myself. But the OP did mention “Meta products” and you are ignoring the elephant in the room: WhatsApp. In many countries it has completely replaced the PSTN: you cannot contact a business (they won’t answer normal calls and may not post email addresses), cannot get the necessary info on how to check into the reception-less accommodation one booked, and one will find it hard to maintain contact with people one may well wish to maintain contact with.
- Larrikin 5mo ago"just don't meet people because they don't communicate via your one specific method"
- skillina 5mo agoThat statement applies to the person who won't be your friend because you don't have an Instagram, not to the person who refuses to install an arbitrary app as a precondition to becoming friends.
- ValentineC 5mo agoGood luck trying to not use Meta products (specifically WhatsApp) as a (non-tech) professional outside the US needing to communicate with their counterparts. The best compromise for such people, I guess, would be a work phone number that's solely for business WhatsApp communication.
- drnick1 5mo agoI don't think it would be difficult to explain, especially in a professional capacity, that you don't use Whatsapp or Facebook because it does not meet your privacy requirements of your business.
- outime 5mo ago>It's really not as hard as it seems Only on HN could someone post a take like this without getting laughed at. Outside our very geeky HN bubble, hardly anyone (let's say in Europe, but all my friends in the US use it as well) uses anything other than WhatsApp. There's literally zero reason for the average user to switch.
- wyclif 5mo agoWhatsApp as the only contact point is a pretty strong signal that the user is from a developing world country. I'm not from that part of the world, so I don't use WhatsApp.
- rahkiin 5mo agoIf you count -all of europe- as a developing country, sure. In europe we never had free unlimited texts. Internet was cheaper than calling/texting, especially with everyone having wifi at home and work. So a cross-platform messaging app appeared and has replaced text and calling.
- wyclif 5mo agoSure, it's not airtight. WhatsApp is popular in Europe. But as an American, when I see somebody say "You can only contact me on WhatsApp", it's not exactly a green text bubble signal.
- Synaesthesia 5mo agoThe entire rest of the world is not just 3rd world countries.
- KoftaBob 5mo ago> we never had free unlimited texts. Internet was cheaper than calling/texting I always found this peculiar, you would think it would be the other way around. I wonder why that is?
- 5mo ago
- Marsymars 5mo agoThe sticky bit I have is facebook marketplace - it's wiped out the other classified marketplaces in my area. I'm not making any serious money off the old stuff I sell, but the alternative to selling it (or even giving away low-value stuff that's still functional) on facebook is basically just throwing it out / destructively recycling it.
- skillina 5mo agoI maintain Meta accounts for two purposes. Facebook Marketplace, and following local businesses on Instagram because it's become the de facto platform for many artists/bars/restaurants/popups to distribute information. I don't add friends, I don't "like" posts, and I don't doomscroll the garbage they put in my feed. I'm willing to give Meta the information that I enjoy old cars, bar trivia, and breakfast sandwich pop-ups.
- w-ll 5mo agoWhat does facebook marketplace have over craigslist?
- adonese 5mo agoin my region (middle east) facebook marketplace is the defacto listing. I know craiglist (just from me being on internet for so long) but i don't think it operates here. And for sellers they also only know facebook.
- NewJazz 5mo agoListings and audience.
- cheema33 5mo ago> What does facebook marketplace have over craigslist? Users. In Portland, Oregon area Craigslist was popular, but is now a ghost town. Everybody has moved to Facebook marketplace.
- Marsymars 5mo ago
- the_af 5mo ago> Just stop using Meta products. It's really not as hard as it seems. Nobody needs FB to communicate with friends and family. Send texts or emails or use your phone. I'm in WhatsApp groups with friends who live abroad, SMS is not an option. We could use another chat app, but then I'd have to convince every friend from every group to use something else. WhatsApp is what every friend I have agrees on. I belong to several hobby groups that exist only on Facebook or Reddit (or Discord, but I dislike it for several reasons). I'd like to ditch both Facebook and Reddit, but that would mean leaving those hobby groups, and given the joy they bring me, I'm not willing to pull the plug yet. So you see, it's really not that easy.
- pmontra 5mo agoAll it would take is WhatsApp going paid plans only. All of Europe will switch to Telegram as primary messaging platform in a couple of days. Hence a paid only WhatsApp will never happen until every plausible alternative will be made impossible either by acquisition or by law.
- deleted 5mo ago[deleted]
- okanat 5mo agoWhatsapp became successful by being cheaper than SMSes in Europe. But yeah people probably switch to the next convenient app.
- TFNA 5mo ago> All of Europe will switch to Telegram as primary messaging platform in a couple of days. I don't think you realize how much Telegram is associated with hated Russia and the local far-right in several European countries.
- pmontra 5mo agoWhatever it is, it's the most known WhatsApp alternative in this part of the world and if WhatsApp will start asking again only 1 Euro (about 15 years ago) and enforce it this time, my bet is that people will switch to Telegram en masse.
- laweijfmvo 5mo agoi missed a flight once (it was a small private cessna while on vacation). turns out they had tried calling me on WhatsApp, which i don’t use.
- komali2 5mo agoThe only way to know the correct meshtastic configs for Taiwan is to join the meshtastic Taiwan Facebook group. Or attend an event in person. They advertise their in person events on the meshtastic Facebook group.
- rootusrootus 5mo agoHa, I fell for that the first time, not getting me twice. That was my wake up call for how insular the HN bubble is and how utterly convinced people here are that they represent or understand normies.
- jjulius 5mo agoThe FOMO everyone here is responding with is wild.
- deflator 5mo agoIt must not be that difficult since I have never used a Meta product in my life. I had a Livejournal, lol.