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BirdyChat becomes first European chat app that is interoperable with WhatsApp

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Re: BirdyChat becomes first European chat app that is interoperable with WhatsApp

#361

Post by jhasse »

direwolf20 wrote: post #263
Grimblewald wrote: post #193

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Shouldnt be hard to convince folks. Everyone i know hates facebook / meta and is just waiting for an agreed upon alternative.

There's one. It's Signal. I keep telling people to use it and they keep not, because people are less likely to do things if they've been told they should do them.

Signal is so much worse than WhatsApp from a UX perspective. Backup sync forces you to allow background permissions (WhatsApp doesn't), you have to set and get nagged to enter a PIN every few weeks (WhatsApp doesn't), there's no transcription for audio messages (WhatsApp has that for some languages), the desktop app loses its connection if you don't open it ever few weeks (WhatsApp works fine), etc.

If you want people to switch, recommend Telegram.

Re: BirdyChat becomes first European chat app that is interoperable with WhatsApp

#362

Post by urbandw311er »

mcjiggerlog wrote: post #2

> With the new WhatsApp interface mandated by the DMA, any BirdyChat user in the EEA will be able to start a chat with any WhatsApp user in the region simply by knowing their phone number. Unfortunately, as it's been implemented as opt-in on WhatsApp's side, this isn't really true. Honestly that decision alone means it's kinda dead in the water.

> any BirdyChat user

And how many of these are there? Anyone?

Re: BirdyChat becomes first European chat app that is interoperable with WhatsApp

#363

Post by 0xDEAFBEAD »

hsbauauvhabzb wrote: post #357
0xDEAFBEAD wrote: post #319

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"X should do Y" is common phrasing Americans use to talk about US public policy. >It’s more like expecting a privilege your parents gave your sibling just because they got it as a result of doing well in school while your grades were so-so. It was once believed that privacy is a right that all humans share, and should be advanced for everyone. Modern scholars understand that this view is mistaken. Privacy is a privil…

America has eroded and treated privacy not as a right, not as a privilege, but as nothing. It has been doing this more and more blatantly across the world for the past 2 years and has now become an authoritarian state, threatening war across the globe while simultaneously destabilising the global economy. America IS bad, for multiple reasons.

So why are you so angry at jordemort trying to push back?

Re: BirdyChat becomes first European chat app that is interoperable with WhatsApp

#364

Post by speleding »

neves wrote: post #270
joe_mamba wrote: post #190

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>The regional limit makes it pretty much useless. Sounds like an easy fix. Europe just has to convince the rest of the world to ditch the 15 year old popular US apps ingrained in pop culture and with network effects, and have them switch to their own EU made apps, this way we can all communicate together. :hugs: Until then, let's keep chatting on $US_APP so we can debate on how we're gonna achieve that switch.

Man, this is just a message app. It's trivial. The law must mandate it to work. It's not a technical problem. It's a political one

Not sure whether you would call this technical, but the difficulty lies in allowing third party access and still prevent spam.

The reason Whatsapp won out over competing services in the first place (over here at least) was that they managed to be both free and relatively spam free. All free alternatives quickly got subsumed by spam (even non-free SMS has a spam problem nowadays).

Re: BirdyChat becomes first European chat app that is interoperable with WhatsApp

#365

Post by inexcf »

mlrtime wrote: post #278
lxgr wrote: post #216

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> whataspp discloses name, picture, status Only to who you choose to make it available to. And if you choose “everybody”, I don’t see how you can reasonably expect this to mean “everybody not using third-party software”?

Because I don't chose everybody? I don't want everyone to see my information, why would I?

Man there's a rising amount of people who don't understand hypotheticals. How can you think that your comment "...I don't chose everybody?" is a valid answer to "If you chose everybody..." ?

Re: BirdyChat becomes first European chat app that is interoperable with WhatsApp

#367

Post by Kwpolska »

tngranados wrote: post #355
j1elo wrote: post #349

I'd like to take the opportunity to mention a tiny very useful app that allows opening a WhatsApp chat directly with any number, without having to register it first as a contact. Great for vacations or similar situations where a quick one-time chat is needed with somebody: * https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.trianguloy... * Webapp: https://trianguloy.github.io/OpenInWhatsapp_Web/ I'm just grateful for…

Since some time ago, you can type the number directly in the search bar and it would let you message it, at least on iOS

Same on Android.

Re: BirdyChat becomes first European chat app that is interoperable with WhatsApp

#368

Post by philipallstar »

ronsor wrote: post #73
echelon wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[flagged]

> Or worse - you have a nice trademark for your business or product, and google managed to turn 91% of "URL bars" through "web standards" and unilateral control / anti-competitive practices, turn these into "Google search". You type in Anthropic and instead of seeing their homepage, you see ads for ChatGPT. 50% of Google's revenue is trademark taxation. This is preposterous. You'd see ads for Gemini, not ChatGPT.

What web standard is this?

Re: BirdyChat becomes first European chat app that is interoperable with WhatsApp

#369

Post by arter45 »

AnthonyMouse wrote: post #335
chii wrote: post #293

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> But that is marketing not coding. it's the network effect. If normies who don't care for things (which is most people tbh) don't decide to switch, do you, as a techie/early adopter, just turn off whatsapp and disconnect with your normie friends? You are unlikely to be important enough in the friend group to force a switch, not to mention that this needs to happen enmass for a swing in the network effect to happen.

Being implacably stubborn is underrated. People can trivially have two messaging apps on their phone, which means they can all still contact you while using WhatsApp with other people. Then they all slowly end up with Signal on their phone, at which point who needs WhatsApp at all? "The reasonable man adapts himself to the world; the unreasonable man persists in trying to adapt the world to himself. Therefore all pro…

Yes, you can have two messaging apps, but people will have a “main app” which is typically the one used by important people in their life (family, partner,…) and/or the one used by most people. Meanwhile, if you all use two apps, everytime you want to check up on a friend you have to check two apps.

Imagine all your friends love pizza, as do you. Suddenly you decide sushi is better so, naturally, you tell your friends to try out sushi at the next dinner. Assuming some of your friends are not absolutely against sushi, yes, you’ll have that sushi dinner. But what if they don’t like it that much? They will revert to pizza or accept sushi, occasionally, when they want to see you, while still prefering pizza for all other interactions.

There has to be a perceived advantage for changing habits. If few people see the benefits of Signal or other non-Whatsapp apps, they will not change their minds.

Re: BirdyChat becomes first European chat app that is interoperable with WhatsApp

#370

Post by moffkalast »

mcjiggerlog wrote: post #2

> With the new WhatsApp interface mandated by the DMA, any BirdyChat user in the EEA will be able to start a chat with any WhatsApp user in the region simply by knowing their phone number. Unfortunately, as it's been implemented as opt-in on WhatsApp's side, this isn't really true. Honestly that decision alone means it's kinda dead in the water.

I thought the stupid name was enough to kill it tbh. I'm not telling anyone they can call me on "birdychat" lmao.
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