Poll: Switching from WhatsApp • Hacker News Board

Re: Poll: Switching from WhatsApp

#631

Post by graeme » Thu, Jan 07, 2021, 4:31 PM UTC

speeder wrote: post #555

itsnot2020 wrote: post #492

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The reason I originally signed-up to WhatsApp was because of spending more and more time in Brazil and realising how ingrained in society it is. Even though a lot of my friends and family there have iPhones, none use iMessage.

iMessage is just too risky. Reason is that it is also an interface for SMS, and SMS in Brazil is obscenely crazy expensive, some operators might charge 1 BRL per message or stuff like that (for context: 1 BRL is the price of a cup of coffee or of a bottle of water), using iMessage and having it to switch to SMS without you noticing can rack bills that are easily bigger than your wages.

There’s a toggle to disable send as sms in the settings.

Of course not everyone knows that and it isn’t the default so I can see how this is a deterrent in practice.

Re: Poll: Switching from WhatsApp

#632

Post by ivanche » Thu, Jan 07, 2021, 4:34 PM UTC

fahadkhan wrote: post #345

hoorayimhelping wrote: post #314

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

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.

This heavily depends on country of residence. While I had been living in Serbia, there was one king - Viber. I've heard of WhatsApp back then but didn't know a single person using it. In Germany it's vice versa - the king is WhatsApp, nobody heard of Viber.

Re: Poll: Switching from WhatsApp

#633

Post by rglullis » Thu, Jan 07, 2021, 4:39 PM UTC

adam0c wrote: post #629

I'll also jump on the band wagon that deleting it is a bit of a bad idea as much as i hate facebook too, but if you actually read the full terms and privacy you can opt out of moat things and they only really effect you if you have other services in the "facebook company" group much like how google tracks you across everything with their ad ID it's the same with facebook. read the terms and privacy thoroughly and you…

It doesn't matter. Remember, before acquisition their main revenue plan was to charge $1/year/user. WhatsApp biggest selling point was that it promised it would not have ads and it would be focused on privacy.

End-to-end encryption came despite Facebook. Its founder left when it was clear that Facebook planned to leverage WhatsApp userbase into other Facebook properties despite promises of the contrary.

Now they are actually executing on it. The only action that can have any effect on Facebook is if they start losing users over this.

Re: Poll: Switching from WhatsApp

#634

Post by ffpip » Thu, Jan 07, 2021, 4:39 PM UTC

Singal is always gonna win on HN. Firefox, Signal, etc are HN favorites.

Surprising to see Matrix 3rd despite being added after half an hour. Will check it out.

Re: Poll: Switching from WhatsApp

#635

Post by alessivs » Thu, Jan 07, 2021, 4:40 PM UTC

Add DeltaChat - https://delta.chat

Re: Poll: Switching from WhatsApp

#636

Post by millibar » Thu, Jan 07, 2021, 4:41 PM UTC

jimbokun wrote: post #448

raziel2p wrote: post #339

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 ea…

> Eh, it's not like "the nerds" can build a better product in terms of UX anyway, and definitely can't market it better. Um, the original WhatsApp company was pretty much run by nerds, I thought, who made a product with UX so good they organically built a user base so large that FaceBook paid $16 billion for the company?

$19 billion according to wiki :-)

Re: Poll: Switching from WhatsApp

#637

Post by tobib » Thu, Jan 07, 2021, 4:41 PM UTC

rauljordan2020 wrote: post #600

metafunctor wrote: post #500

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm having a hard time understanding how WhatsApp could be convenient enough to replace most online services and apps. Do you send text messages with some magic keywords to order at Burger King, or is there a person on the other end reading it, or how does that work? How do you pay? How do you browse the menu? I don't understand.

In Central America whatsapp also _is_ basically the Internet along with facebook. There is a person on the other end taking your order and payments are always done in cash, although some advanced delivery drivers now carry a credit card swipe machine. Everything is done through whatsapp: bills, ordering food, govt services, parent teacher communications for children in schools, business introductions (dont know anyon…

Thank you all for shining a light on this. I didn't know this was so bad. I'm simply annoyed that some social groups use Facebook to organize, our neighborhood group, the parenting class, so I just can't be a part of that and try to move individual people, like my immediate neighbors, onto other platforms. But "bills, ordering food, govt services, parent teacher communications", that's extreme.

At least for bills and govt services I wonder, who approves something like that?

Re: Poll: Switching from WhatsApp

#638

Post by jorvi » Thu, Jan 07, 2021, 4:45 PM UTC

JshWright wrote: post #466

schwartzworld wrote: post #455

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's not that surprising. If you live in the US and don't need to text people in other countries, you probably can avoid WhatsApp pretty easily, but it's pretty much the defacto option for texting non-US family and friends, and in many countries it's the predominant form of mass communication.

I communicate with a number of non-US folks routinely, and have still never needed WhatsApp. They're all in Europe though, so perhaps that's why.

Whatsapp is king in most of Europe

Re: Poll: Switching from WhatsApp

#639

Post by ffpip » Thu, Jan 07, 2021, 4:47 PM UTC

some_random wrote: post #581

s_dev wrote: post #463

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As a reminder encrypted messages aren't easily searchable -- this is a simple trade off and not some dark pattern default. Many Telegram users are away of it's quirks and how it operates differently to other IMs. Any tool will do damage in the hands of a bad workman. A good way to infer Telegram is reliable is how many despotic tyrants and corrupt countries ban it.

>A good way to infer Telegram is reliable is how many despotic tyrants and corrupt countries ban it. No, this only tells you that it's used en mass in those countries.

Not really. Whatsapp is used by every person in Brazil, yet didn't get around a temporary ban [1]. Telegram gained about 1.5 Million people switching to telegram in a day. [2]

Whatsapp didn't win many users, even when Telegram was banned in Russia for months.

Telegram even worked in Belarus despite the whole internet shutting down there. [3]

[1] - https://techcrunch.com/2016/07/19/whatsapp-blocked-in-brazil...

[2] - https://www.theverge.com/2015/12/17/10386776/brazil-whatsapp...

[3] - https://www.latimes.com/world-nation/story/2020-08-21/telegr...

Re: Poll: Switching from WhatsApp

#640

Post by rglullis » Thu, Jan 07, 2021, 4:47 PM UTC

mschuetz wrote: post #541

rglullis wrote: post #228

From the listed alternatives, only Matrix is the one that actually solves the issue of not having to trust our communications to any single monopolistic entity. You could add XMPP there as well, but it really doesn't matter. What does matter is for us to start pushing for openness and start evangelizing/helping others to adopt anything that puts us back in control of our communication. This is the one thing to fix, a…

Matrix, or at least Element, has terrible UX, though, and I'd never recommend it to my family. It opens three message boxes every single time I open the web client, and I can't disable these boxes permanently. Oh, and I have to login again every time because it doesn't remember logins.

Again: bugs can be fixed. You are free to go open an issue and get developers to look at this. Element's short history has shown that they are aware of the issues and are reasonably responsive in fixing them.

There is no place you can go to open an issue that says "Facebook is exploiting user data even on applications that are supposed (promised, even) to be private.". Even if it were, ALL of Facebook's history is filled with privacy violations.

"Move fast and break things" should NEVER be a motto of a company that deals with the lives and social interactions of 2+ billion people.