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Show HN: WhatsApp MCP Server

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Re: Show HN: WhatsApp MCP Server

#41

Post by vvillena »

CarlitosHighway wrote: post #9
samastur wrote: post #6

Cool work, but I'm more fascinated by your claim "99% of your life is stored in WhatsApp...". Not even remotely true for me even if it would encompass all messaging apps I use. I guess I'm just an old introvert, but it makes me wonder how life looks like for those for whom it is true.

The way to absolute dominance of WhatsApp with the Normies has't been sufficiently analyzed, I reckon. Somehow, WhatsApp managed to become extremely popular and heavily used by people who have trouble switching on a desktop pc. Even senior citizens have no trouble using it. Is it because they have a high motivation to use it? The UI / UX of WhatsApp surely isn't great, I'd even say it's quite bad. Where am I wrong? W…

WhatsApp nailed the onboarding experience. In a time where other services asked you to create an account with an email and password, which is enough of a hurdle already, WhatsApp looked up your phone number and said "I'm sending you an SMS, enter the number you received to check we got it right". And then, it never asked for anything ever again.

Re: Show HN: WhatsApp MCP Server

#42

Post by Aachen »

sbkg0002 wrote: post #15
_def wrote: post #8

If I find out someone pipes my chat messages into a LLM, I will not converse with that person anymore.

Since Meta is a big AI investor, I suggest you skip WhatsApp altogether.

You think they (plan to) decrypt messages and then upload them again in plain text to a server?

Since on-device processing is neither as objectionable nor could be very large

I don't use WhatsApp myself because of who runs it and there are plenty of better options out there, so I certainly agree with the sentiment of steering clear, but this claim does seem pretty far out there

Re: Show HN: WhatsApp MCP Server

#43

Post by rpastuszak »

CarlitosHighway wrote: post #9
samastur wrote: post #6

Cool work, but I'm more fascinated by your claim "99% of your life is stored in WhatsApp...". Not even remotely true for me even if it would encompass all messaging apps I use. I guess I'm just an old introvert, but it makes me wonder how life looks like for those for whom it is true.

The way to absolute dominance of WhatsApp with the Normies has't been sufficiently analyzed, I reckon. Somehow, WhatsApp managed to become extremely popular and heavily used by people who have trouble switching on a desktop pc. Even senior citizens have no trouble using it. Is it because they have a high motivation to use it? The UI / UX of WhatsApp surely isn't great, I'd even say it's quite bad. Where am I wrong? W…

I don't use WhatsApp, I helped most of my family and many friends move away from it, and I feel like we (you and I) see WA in a similar way. IMO the main issue here is the network effect and vendor lock-in (for the lack of a better term -- I'm writing this from my phone in a rush).

> Where am I wrong? What am I not seeing?

English is my second language, so maybe I'm missing some context here, but every time I hear techies calling non-techies "Normies", it's used in a derogatory / condescending fashion. That's reductive (non-techies are not a homogenous group) and somewhat intellectually lazy.

To give you an example, WA users in the US and, say Portugal or Poland ended up using it for slightly different reasons and in a different technical context. WA used to be the best video chat app for quite some time in the UK, AT or PL (imo), and I know of many people who started using it for that specific reason (esp. important for large migrant communities). FaceTime wasn't that popular because Android market share in the EU was bigger than in the US.

Re: Show HN: WhatsApp MCP Server

#44

Post by bilekas »

_def wrote: post #8

If I find out someone pipes my chat messages into a LLM, I will not converse with that person anymore.

This is actually something I am curious about, if for example I use this and I and streaming all my contacts information and messages externally, surely I'm breaking privacy laws in some US states and certainly in the EU.

This seems sketchy to me.

Re: Show HN: WhatsApp MCP Server

#46

Post by Aachen »

stavros wrote: post #19
siva7 wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't think their main concern was the privacy aspect.

What do you think their concern was? I can't see any other issues someone might have.

Energy usage is another. What would happen to world power consumption if 1% of WhatsApp chats would be fed to ChatGPT?

A third reason besides privacy would be the purpose. Is the purpose generating automatic replies? Or automatic summaries because the recipient can't be bothered to read what I wrote? That would be a dick move and a good reason to object as well, in my opinion

Re: Show HN: WhatsApp MCP Server

#48

Post by Aachen »

tobyhinloopen wrote: post #11
_def wrote: post #8

If I find out someone pipes my chat messages into a LLM, I will not converse with that person anymore.

That's a completely reasonable boundary. Privacy and consent are critical, especially when sharing personal messages or conversations. It's fair to expect that your interactions remain private unless you've explicitly agreed otherwise. If you'd like, you can communicate your stance clearly to others in advance, ensuring they're aware of your boundaries regarding the use of your messages with AI tools or other externa…

I understand why one would think it's funny to feed the parent comment into an LLM but please at least label when you echo such output on the site

Re: Show HN: WhatsApp MCP Server

#49

Post by echoangle »

As others have already said, think about what you're doing when you use this.

If you connect a not-selhosted LLM to this, you're effectively uploading chat message with other people to a third-party server. The people you chat with have an expectation of privacy so this would probably be illegal in many jurisdictions.

Re: Show HN: WhatsApp MCP Server

#50

Post by ideashower »

charlie-83 wrote: post #47
master-lincoln wrote: post #38

If 99% of your life is stored at one of the biggest advertising companies in the world you already gave up on privacy anyway...

All messages are e2e encrypted though right?

Messages are. I do not believe that metadata about the messages are, however. So they know who you're speaking to, at what frequency, and from where.
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