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Ask HN: How would you convince your friends and family to switch from WhatsApp?

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21–30 of 210 posts

Re: Ask HN: How would you convince your friends and family to switch from WhatsApp?

#21
post #15

In my country (Mexico) it'll be pretty much impossible, everyone uses WA/Messenger (both FB owned) many businesses/stores have support via those channels (and that support is almost always faster than calling them) Also my appartament building has a WA group where people notifies important stuff. And to add insult to perjury most data plans include WA/Messenger/FB free. I tried years ago (2014-15) to stay telegram on…

yeah, sounds like an impossible situation to get our of over there. also sounds like facebook have essentially monopolised messaging services in Mexio. I also read something similar about Brazil too.

Re: Ask HN: How would you convince your friends and family to switch from WhatsApp?

#22

Steps, I've taken in order. 0. Removing myself from all active WhatsApp groups. 1. Setting the WhatsApp status to 'Message me on Signal or Email me' and not responding to non-important messages till they message on Signal or Email me. 2. When someone asks if we can continue our conversation on WhatsApp, politely informing them that I don't use WhatsApp and asking them to message on Signal. 3. Setting a Tasker auto re…

I like this. Didn't realise it was possible to set up auto responders on WhatsApp via Tasker.

Thanks for this :-)

Re: Ask HN: How would you convince your friends and family to switch from WhatsApp?

#23

I don't use any messenger apps, but I work in AdTech. Just curious, what exactly are you trying to hide? What kind of information is being shared by WhatsApp?

Do you use the default messenger apps that come pre-installed or just non what-so-ever? And Why?

Re: Ask HN: How would you convince your friends and family to switch from WhatsApp?

#24
post #4

My family hates WhatsApp as there are no Telegram stickers there. So it was easy. So I guess, I'd show them animated stickers. WhatsApp feels archaic tbh

Yeah, i thought WhatsApp was the shit until I started using Telegram

Re: Ask HN: How would you convince your friends and family to switch from WhatsApp?

#25
post #5

I tried asking my parents to switch to Signal, but it did not fly. They are in their 70s and are used to WhatsApp. They don't care about privacy. My Mom yelled at me for endorsing Signal to her. She said: "All my friends are on WhatsApp. I don't want to install another app just because of one person."

Haha, this is pretty much what i expect to hear from my mum who took year to figure out how to use WhatsApp

Re: Ask HN: How would you convince your friends and family to switch from WhatsApp?

#27
post #5

I tried asking my parents to switch to Signal, but it did not fly. They are in their 70s and are used to WhatsApp. They don't care about privacy. My Mom yelled at me for endorsing Signal to her. She said: "All my friends are on WhatsApp. I don't want to install another app just because of one person."

My strategy is: tell them I will be leaving WhatsApp, and they can reach me on Signal.

If they don’t care enough to install a free app to talk to me, good riddance.

Re: Ask HN: How would you convince your friends and family to switch from WhatsApp?

#28
post #8
post #2

Simple: You wont get computer help from me anymore if you try message me on WhatsApp. Install the messenger i tell you to install.

Coercion? How crude and unlikely. Everyone I know is able enough to administer their own gizmos. If someone asks, I point them to the zero config option that will require zero tech skills. Computer maintenance is mostly unskilled drudgery nowadays, not wizardry.

still wizardry for a lot of the elder generation I think

Re: Ask HN: How would you convince your friends and family to switch from WhatsApp?

#29

I don't use any messenger apps, but I work in AdTech. Just curious, what exactly are you trying to hide? What kind of information is being shared by WhatsApp?

Are you serious here? Working in AdTech - which does (or at least should) translate to "working on undoing the good which used to be the public internet" - you most certainly realise, and possibly salivate over the breadth and width of Facebook's means to profile 'net users, whether those be actual Facebook (as in "Facebook the site, Instagram, WhatsApp and whatever other company they reeled in") users or otherwise. For those who want to keep their exposure to AdTech as small as possible it is adamant not to feed the beast if this can be avoided. That means not using any of their products and blocking access to any of their properties. It means not believing a word of what Facebook says about keeping WhatsApp apart from their other properties as they have shown time and again that they can not be trusted - something which is endemic when it concerns anything related to AdTech, probably because the lure of all that user data just waiting to be exploited is simply too big.

While this might not work as an argument to convince friends and family to stay away from Facebook (et al) it is the actual reason for doing so. It is just that the argument smacks too much of politics and zealotry to get people to change their ways.

To answer the original poster's question I'd suggest to simply use something else and give those friends and family your contact info on that other thing. There are plenty of options out there, all with their own pros and cons. The easiest sell will probably be Telegram since it offers a far superior user experience over WhatsApp, especially for those who use more than a single device. That this implies that Telegram stores user data and as such theoretically could do all sorts of nefarious things with it is just as interesting to the average user as the fact that Facebook will have been abusing WhatsApp data for years now, most people simply don't care. Telegram now also offers video calls by the way which takes away the last advantage WhatsApp had.

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