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Poll: Switching from WhatsApp

news.ycombinator.com

851–860 of 972 posts

Re: Poll: Switching from WhatsApp

#851

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.

"Asking to leave WhatsApp is like cancelling your contract with yout ISP and going offline just because you don't like the company." Hopefully the reason this is at the top is not this sentence. This hallucinatory idea is exactly what Facebook PR, a.k.a. "damage control", wants people to believe. You have no contract with Facebook. You pay them nothing. There is no legal recourse whatsoever. You cannot enforce "your…

Given how integrated Whatsapp is in many non-US markets, their statement is spot on. It has nothing to do with propagating the lies of a tech company. It's about being stuck in a society that has moved to a single platform because it made itself available as the easiest method long before facebook bought it up.

See Also: Weechat in china, LINE in Japan.

Living in the US I considering myself lucky that I'm not locked into a singular platform for communcation, payments, services, etc like many others.

Re: Poll: Switching from WhatsApp

#852

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

I'm pretty sure it's not my area, I just tell everyone I converse with to use signal and most of them do.

Re: Poll: Switching from WhatsApp

#853
It is a big weakness, that the companies cannot be force to state if they are acting as a platform or as a publisher.

I think companies are way too power full right now, and the ability to shift position, sometimes they are a platform and sometimes a publisher. Companies should not be allowed to "shift" depending on how asks the question. I think a normal human would be forced to answer (in court), if they said different answer to different people. But these companies get away with it.

Much of the conditions that has helped shape the current situation might shaping new efforts as well..

Support and client questions etc will probably be avoid as much as possible. Example do NOT explain why a BAN was issued, give as little chance to appeal as possible, and avoid all discussions about why something was done. Just say that they broke a rule, do not mention what rules or where in the text / video the "crime" was committed.

Appeal process is very expensive, and if a company gave reason for example when they did a BAN that would sometime cause the banned person to appeal. If they stated why, a person in USA could appeal using the common justice system and perhaps claim in-justice, or lying (I guess a person might have a chance if the company did not apply its rule consistently, or if they could prove a lie)

If they can avoid to given any reason for it, there is no way they will keep any rules well defined, it gives them much more power if the rules could be flexed a bit.

I think the "common justice system" with defender, accuser and judge would be much better. A court also has to keep record of decisions and reasons. But I think no company would do that, it would limit their control/power and probably be expensive as well.

I still think the companies have a bit too much power, and in a way wonder if they could be forced to solve "justice" better than now.

Re: Poll: Switching from WhatsApp

#854
What about Tox or something like that? What about Jabber?

By the way, bare e-mail is usually enough if you omit bloated signatures and quotations and just send short messages that way. There even is a Telegram clone which actually is an e-mail client.

Re: Poll: Switching from WhatsApp

#855
post #283

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…

Sounds like a replacement for SMS is needed ASAP. We should not be relying on tech giants for something as critical as messaging. SMS is provided as part of a phone plan and does not rely on any FAANGs to operate. We need an end-to-end encrypted protocol for use over the cell network that is provided by default with all cell plans.

Re: Poll: Switching from WhatsApp

#856
As I stated in a reply, so many people on some countries and communities rely on Whatsapp for essential comms. This role used to be filled by SMS, but now people expect a better experience. Why hasn't an alternative to SMS been created yet? We should not be relying on private tech giants to provide this essential service. There should be a fully end-to-end encrypted messaging service, supported by all Telecom providers, that is available by default with all cell plans. Data is now king, and almost all cell towers now have a data connection. We hasn't this problem been solved yet? We've essentially outsourced the creation of this critical infrastructure to companies that want to sell our data.

Re: Poll: Switching from WhatsApp

#857

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Asking to leave WhatsApp is like cancelling your contract with yout ISP and going offline just because you don't like the company." Hopefully the reason this is at the top is not this sentence. This hallucinatory idea is exactly what Facebook PR, a.k.a. "damage control", wants people to believe. You have no contract with Facebook. You pay them nothing. There is no legal recourse whatsoever. You cannot enforce "your…

Given how integrated Whatsapp is in many non-US markets, their statement is spot on. It has nothing to do with propagating the lies of a tech company. It's about being stuck in a society that has moved to a single platform because it made itself available as the easiest method long before facebook bought it up. See Also: Weechat in china, LINE in Japan. Living in the US I considering myself lucky that I'm not locked…

[deleted]

Re: Poll: Switching from WhatsApp

#858

As I stated in a reply, so many people on some countries and communities rely on Whatsapp for essential comms. This role used to be filled by SMS, but now people expect a better experience. Why hasn't an alternative to SMS been created yet? We should not be relying on private tech giants to provide this essential service. There should be a fully end-to-end encrypted messaging service, supported by all Telecom provide…

I don't think many people will be disagreeing with you, but for now, and for those of us who don't have the skills to solve the problem, we are left to look for the best option that is available.

You've correctly identified all the problems and what should be done ... are you going to work on it?

If not, why not? Perhaps the answer to that will tell you why, as far as we know, nobody is working on it.

Sure as heckfire none of the big telecoms providers are going to bother.

Re: Poll: Switching from WhatsApp

#859
post #709

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is patently false. Local indexing and search will always outperform a network call

How are you indexing literally billions of messages on tiny mobile devices? What happens when you wipe your device and you want to have your chat history from before? How do you download all the previous chat messages? Who hosts the chat index?

I think it is very unlikely for a conversation to reach billions of messages. There are less than 32 million seconds in a year. So, Yoigo would need to send a message per seconds for decades to reach a billion.

Of course there are people who are much more popular than me, so it might be possible and I am not aware of it. :)

Re: Poll: Switching from WhatsApp

#860

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.

I ask this as a non-Whatsapp user. I have read the comments and I understand in some countries (Brazil, Netherlands, etc.) that Whatsapp is the main tool for person to person and person to business communications. What I can't figure out is why did it displace "plain SMS" or other tools. What drove the adoption? I'd love to hear more about that - was Whatsapp just the first mover?

> What I can't figure out is why did it displace "plain SMS" or other tools.

SMS was unreliable, at least back when it was used. It was common for someone to receive it hours later or at least many minutes later, when it was too late. Informing someone you just got the message they told you about in-person a while back was a common occurrence. You also don't know when a person received your message, so you would opt to call them anyways if they take too long to reply with something even if they were just busy. Basically, the 2 checkmarks on each message is the killer feature.

Spam is also a problem with SMS.

Email is something that never really took off in mobile devices. I suppose everyone saw it as the same thing as SMS, with the same issues. Perhaps worse, since an email client needed to poll the server for new messages. SMS is something people did since before smartphones. Dumbphones didn't commonly have real support for email. Also, email on a mobile device meant you had to setup the mail client, and you didn't have to setup anything with SMS, just give people your number.

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