We switched to Signal & finding Signal consumes too much of data. I think the video & audio resolution is excellent in Signal - that could be one reason. I do not find a way to reduce quality thereby reduce data consumption. For developing countries like India, this is important.
Poll: Switching from WhatsApp
801–810 of 972 posts
Re: Poll: Switching from WhatsApp
#802IRC ???
Re: Poll: Switching from WhatsApp
#803Is there a way to use Signal or the rest as your main messenger app or are you just forced to use two apps if you want to communicate to non-Signalers?
I know it’s a really elementary question when the rest of you are looking at this from a high-level (great discussion btw) but I’m never ever going to convince anyone to use anything but iOS messenger if they need two apps.
Re: Poll: Switching from WhatsApp
#804Earlier quoted context omitted.
That would seriously break the network effect and eventually kill them off. Skype, Yahoo Messenger, etc got popular because they where free and easy to use. However, the market is really fickle and network effects can kill stuff off really quickly. WhatsApp is already DOA in my circle of friends, it might come back but the odds aren’t great.
The WhatsApp network effect is strongly tied to borders though. Almost no one uses it in New Zealand for example, but a lot of people use Facebook Messenger but it isn't completely dominant like WhatsApp is in some places. I wonder if it ties back to countries that have good value cell phone plans? Even the very cheapest plans here come with unlimited SMS and it's been that way since smartphones were first taking off…
I think you're understating the strength of weak connections. If I have even one friend who's not on Whatsapp that I want to stay in touch with then I'm going to download another app. If there's a group chat with this person then everyone in that group is downloading a second app. And then second degree and third degree connections get affected too.
Getting out of the EU would be a massive blow to any established social media company that depends on network effects. It doesn't matter as much for smaller companies that are still growing (eg. early Facebook still managed to grow by only offering services to college students).
Re: Poll: Switching from WhatsApp
#805Why isn't Skype suggested more often? I've been using it instead of Zoom very successfully. I've moved a lot of my family over to it for our pandemic get togethers. It works very well as a generic messaging platform. Microsoft in my opinion is a far more respectable company compared to Facebook.
I switched away from Skype when Microsoft bought it because there was something fishy (They converted it from P2P, which worked quite well, to MS-owned servers). I wish someone would leak the pre-MS source code.
I would say encrypted P2P is not a requirement for 99% of users. If you require such a level of security then you really shouldn't be using someone else's infrastructure. I include signal and telegram in this.
Re: Poll: Switching from WhatsApp
#806Earlier quoted context omitted.
I wish the EU would force messaging systems to also support interactions with XMPP or other similar open standards. There's nothing in their way to expect such a thing, except the lobbyists.
Why would you want your government to mandate how technology works? Sounds like a recipe for disaster and the perfect way to stifle innovation
I generally agree with this sentiment, but sometimes I think mandating cooperation between walled gardens is the only way to help consumers. Take healthcare for example: Epic, Cerner, Athena, etc all have NO incentive to build any interoperability into their products. It greatly benefits them to create walled gardens and wall-off hospitals and healthcare institutions from other institutions that use their competitors' software.
It took Congress to mandate open standards and to spell out that healthcare institutions must offer a public APIs to patients. We are only now starting to be able to download health records from hospitals as a result of this despite it being technically possible for decades. In fact there are still many patients that are required to request stacks of DVDs containing their health records, and this is their only option.
Obviously this is more a commentary on how shitty healthcare in the US can be, but also a good example IMO of how sometimes government intervention in technical standards requirements can greatly benefit consumers.
Re: Poll: Switching from WhatsApp
#807Matrix with nerds and nerd friends. Signal with friends and family.
Totally. And now, I will easily convert some members of my family to Matrix.
It's getting there with clients like https://f-droid.org/packages/de.spiritcroc.riotx and https://f-droid.org/packages/org.tether.tether
But just explaining the concept of clients in 2021 is an undertaking.
Re: Poll: Switching from WhatsApp
#808Where 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…
> When I delete my account I'm going to lose old conversations
I've deleted my account twice and each time I exported all my data to HTML (without uploading to Google). It's possible.
Re: Poll: Switching from WhatsApp
#809What about wire.com?
Re: Poll: Switching from WhatsApp
#810Unfortunately Signal is just a poor application. There are frequent bugs and after a while push notifications stopped working for me. (Pixel 3a, Android).
I eventaully switched to iMessage.