101–110 of 324 posts
Google is relatively straight forward to replace. Inexpensive 80% solutions exist for most of their services. Maps is a notable exception. As for Facebook you're fighting against the greatest network effects in the history of mankind.
Bing maps is a great 80%+ solution and last I checked a lot cheaper than Google Maps for API integration.
Title mentions alternatives to Facebook, but then doesn't list one? For anyone looking for something there is Diaspora. For a twitter alternative check out Mastodon.
what's a good alternative to gmail?
HN and news aggregators covers the media aspect just fine.
Social is a lot harder - you want to know what your old classmates are up to and what interests them.
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I would love to move to Signal and send anyone reaching out to me on Whatsapp an auto-reply with a Signal invite. Couldn't find how to achieve that. Anyone knowing if this is possible?
It'd be possible, I think. You'd need to run WhatsApp web, which is an Electron app. Get into the dev tools and set it up directly from the JS console.
It's not fair to the public that FB bought up Insta/Whatsapp. That is a true lack of choice. If it were just FB, fine, ignore it, don't use it, use Whatsapp. But no, they get to buy up competition whilst telling us how much our privacy and integrity is taken seriously
Facebook and Insta I can (and do!) live without. Whatsapp though, is the main method of communication, and particularly group communication for all of my friends. It's almost impossible to leave.
He's had to adopt a local SIM card over there for security purposes (Russia's listening) and uses WhatsApp regularly. He asked me to pick it up, and instead I referred him to Signal.
This was [part of] his recent response:
I downloaded signal but they want to confirm my number but my sim card doesnt work over here and my european card is data only.
So that is one blocker for sure but otherwise I always push people to Signal as a reasonable alternative.
It's not fair to the public that FB bought up Insta/Whatsapp. That is a true lack of choice. If it were just FB, fine, ignore it, don't use it, use Whatsapp. But no, they get to buy up competition whilst telling us how much our privacy and integrity is taken seriously
>It's not fair to the public that FB bought up Insta/Whatsapp. The public probably is not able or willing to pay for extremely valuable instant global communications service that handles audio, video, photo, text, and other data. Regardless of who owns it, I know that my network of people across 4 continents derives great value from the free service.
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It’s interesting because capitalism is all about choice and competition. But what if a player is so successful that it can pay to absorb any competitor that poses a serious threat? I don’t know how capitalism self heals from that.
Capitalism isn't all about choice and competition. Free Markets are. Capitalism is about the means of production being held in private hands - but those private hands still do their best to own all of the means of production and to lock out potential competitors. The two get conflated (free markets and capitalism) but they are different beasts. In fact, you can have a free market socialism (tried semi-successfully by…
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Facebook and Insta I can (and do!) live without. Whatsapp though, is the main method of communication, and particularly group communication for all of my friends. It's almost impossible to leave.
I've converted most of my friends to Signal. Easy switch. [edit] The native desktop app is even better than WhatsApp's (doesn't stream data from your phone).
It's not fair to the public that FB bought up Insta/Whatsapp. That is a true lack of choice. If it were just FB, fine, ignore it, don't use it, use Whatsapp. But no, they get to buy up competition whilst telling us how much our privacy and integrity is taken seriously
Facebook and Insta I can (and do!) live without. Whatsapp though, is the main method of communication, and particularly group communication for all of my friends. It's almost impossible to leave.