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Poll: Switching from WhatsApp

news.ycombinator.com

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Re: Poll: Switching from WhatsApp

#331

Post by abdullahkhalids »

jbotz wrote: post #283
apexalpha wrote: post #155

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.

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…

In my country, WhatsApp, Facebook and Youtube are not free, but are a lot cheaper than general data packages. Which means we must organize even harder to get rid of these non-internet-neutrality believing companies.

Re: Poll: Switching from WhatsApp

#332

Post by zinekeller »

harpratap wrote: post #211

No option for RCS? It's a true successor to SMS and you can switch providers without losing anyone in your contacts. Although I am not really sure how easy it will be to switch clients and use something 3rd party

Mainly because of the fact that it is de facto controlled by Google (via Jibe).

Re: Poll: Switching from WhatsApp

#333

Post by aembleton »

shiftingleft wrote: post #268
csmattryder wrote: post #159

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Make it easier to switch, is the answer. That was my thought process evaluating alternatives this morning. Signal is apparently lauded by the privacy crowd, but I took one look at it and said "no way is Mum going to use this". I went with Telegram because the usability was good, WhatsApp-like functionality, and I saw a few people I know already on it - non-techies in particular, which is vital if we're going to disru…

What gripes did you run into with Signal? Most of my friends (tech or non-tech) use Signal, so I'm really curious.

Where do you live? It's interesting to hear about an area where most people are running signal.

Here in the UK WhatsApp and messenger are the only ones that most people I know are using.

Re: Poll: Switching from WhatsApp

#334

Post by einpoklum »

hrns wrote: post #58
0x_rs wrote: post #43

Been using Telegram for a long time. I don't trust it any more than I do with WhatsApp (therefore, Facebook), however it is well done and thought out, has a real desktop client with a real desktop UI toolkit and enough of my contacts are on it already, therefore it's the best compromise to me. I greatly dislike Signal's UI when I tried it out and I've read about some weird decisions lately (that "using a PIN? uploadi…

Signal requires phone number in order not to store your contact list on their servers. Instead of id's/email addresses/nicknames they are using your phone contact list. IMHO that's better for privacy.

Asking for a real-world identifier is breaking privacy from the get-go...

Re: Poll: Switching from WhatsApp

#335

Post by londons_explore »

pelasaco wrote: post #269
londons_explore wrote: post #220

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's about time someone made a unified messenger client that combines all these conversations and hides the detail of which service you are using to talk to friends.

I agree with you. However it won't solve the problem of privacy regarding Facebook. Other issue that I see here, people want an unified messenger, with a great user experience, 100% secure, open-source, multi-platform, free (as in beer) and no monetization included. I'm sometimes shocked that here - hacker news - people underestimate the price of good software development, infrastructure and maintenance.

Even a tiny amount of monetization should pay for development of a chat app...

Imagine you build it with a team of 5 software devs for each of linux, mac, windows, android, ios, web. You build it in Europe paying a generous salary of $80k. You need 1 server per million users (as whatsapp did pre-acquisition), hosted on say AWS. If you get 10% of the world to use it, the total running costs are 1.2 cents per user per year.

That can totally be paid for by sending each user 1 sponsored chat message per decade. That's a pretty acceptable level of advertising I'd say.

It's incompatible with VC's demanding hockey-stick revenue growth though...

Re: Poll: Switching from WhatsApp

#336

Post by ddevault »

prajjwal wrote: post #173
ddevault wrote: post #82

IRC. IRC has been around for the rise and fall of everything else on your list, and a dozen more that we've already forgotten. I have used IRC for my entire life and I see no reason to switch.

As much as I love IRC, it is fundamentally incompatible with the way people use IM these days. Even if you gloss over the lack of "modern" features, you're still going to have a very hard time with vanilla IRC on mobile where keeping a persistent background socket open is frowned upon (if not outright illegal). Don't get me wrong - I love IRC, and have used it as my primary social network for years. And after spendin…

>I just don't see the average Whatsapp user ever switching to IRC.

The participants of this thread are not the average Whatsapp user - they're self-identified "hackers".

Re: Poll: Switching from WhatsApp

#337

Post by px43 »

shrikrishna wrote: post #52

I like wire ( https://wire.com/en/ ) but no one I know uses it :-/

Wire is pretty popular in my social circles, less so lately, unfortunately.

The "always on" encryption is great, and it's always been more stable, and had a more complete feature set than Signal, even at launch. Most importantly, migration between devices with Wire is super smooth.

It definitely should be in the poll.

Re: Poll: Switching from WhatsApp

#338

Post by cedricbonhomme »

dustinmoris wrote: post #157
gyosko wrote: post #88

The problem is not finding a nice alternative. The problem is that everybody's contacts are on Whatsapp. How do you make THEM switch?

You uninstall WhatsApp and tell your closest family and friends that they can only reach you on Signal. Because you are so important to them, they will install Signal as a backup/secondary app. Other people will do the same, and it will snowball into everyone having Signal installed and at some point people will realise that the network effect is gone.

This is working for me. I am already using Matrix and now my parents are ready to switch to Matrix (with Element). Thank you Facebook.

Re: Poll: Switching from WhatsApp

#339

Post by raziel2p »

incrudible wrote: post #323
jbotz wrote: post #283

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

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, b…

Eh, it's not like "the nerds" can build a better product in terms of UX anyway, and definitely can't market it better.

Besides, who says "the nerds" are trustworthy anyway? They keep arguing among each other about which operating system or programming language is best, and why should we take their advice when software security vulnerabilities keep being discovered?

Not disagreeing with your point - it's become too easy to just randomly click "agree" on any TOS and trade away your privacy/security for convenience - but don't make it an "us vs them" type of thing. To me, this is purely corporate interest being prioritized ahead of public needs because most politicians either have no spine or answer to lobbyists more than the common person.

Re: Poll: Switching from WhatsApp

#340

Post by est31 »

agilob wrote: post #135
fsflover wrote: post #123

See why Signal is not much better than Whatsapp: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25668547 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25669657 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25668659 Edit: if you would like to avoid constant switching in the future, you have to think long-term and consider a distributed network, not another walled garden.

You are completely missing the point of todays discussion, it's not about who can distribute binaries or implement client. It's about not giving Facebook more data.

The issue is that it gives Signal a lot of control. Don't like some new or existing behaviour of the client? With Matrix you can just use an alternative client. And there is a growing ecosystem of them. With Signal you have to use it whether you want to or not.
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