961–970 of 1001 posts
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Unless it's an open, federated system.
Right. Instant messaging should be considered basic / core utility like ISPs. I can pay a cheap or even a free one and they'll probably sell my data or I can pay more for an ISP that preserve my privacy
In what alternate universe?
Earlier quoted context omitted.
If you, after 20 years, can process all your chat history with a (locally run!) AI, you may find a lot of interesting things about yourself and your friends.
So might anyone else, which is very worrying with the new rise of facism.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Last night I just removed myself from every friend groupchat and blocked everyone there, while leaving a status message about how they can reach me on Signal or call me. If they are actually your friends they'll come around, and families survived before Whatsapp existed. I'm also brazilian, I just won't stand with people dismissing what matters to me as if I'm a nutjob for not using their fascist app
I admire the conviction, but I think you're underestimating the social inertia that platforms like WhatsApp benefit from. The unfortunate reality is that most people won’t follow you. Not because they don’t respect you or your concerns, but because the cost—in effort, friction, or just breaking habitual patterns—is too high. Social coordination is fragile, and it leans heavily on lowest-common-denominator tools. What…
This isn't the only way. The other option is a legally enforced (with real teeth) requirement for interoperability. That we can require device makers to support USB-C charging but can't require social media companies to play nice with others is absurd.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
I admire the conviction, but I think you're underestimating the social inertia that platforms like WhatsApp benefit from. The unfortunate reality is that most people won’t follow you. Not because they don’t respect you or your concerns, but because the cost—in effort, friction, or just breaking habitual patterns—is too high. Social coordination is fragile, and it leans heavily on lowest-common-denominator tools. What…
Your predictions assume I live in a contemporary, "atomic", social organization where people aren't integrated in tight-knit communities apart from the internet. My core friend group meets a few times a week because of church-related activities at a fixed weekly schedule, to the point where if someone is missing with no explanation they get a phone call. Football night is also at a fixed, weekly schedule with no need…
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Your predictions assume I live in a contemporary, "atomic", social organization where people aren't integrated in tight-knit communities apart from the internet. My core friend group meets a few times a week because of church-related activities at a fixed weekly schedule, to the point where if someone is missing with no explanation they get a phone call. Football night is also at a fixed, weekly schedule with no need…
I was also reading some of the comments in this thread with incredulity. You switch messaging apps and your friends.. just aren't your friends anymore? Not being on a particular platform means you'll be "left out"? I've seen a number of group chats move platforms because "we need to add X but he's not on imessage, let's use snap instead" etc. I have all sorts of group chats and contacts on various platforms and they…
But you could also turn your argument around if you wanted to - what kind of friend refuses to talk to you unless you sign up for whatever new app they found.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
This is why we need to unify on protocols, not platforms.
i mean this protocol does exist with RCS. In fact if you use your SMS client it probably defaults to RCS if you have an Internet connection. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rich_Communication_Services
Earlier quoted context omitted.
I feel a bit for Brian Acton - iirc he refused to sell because the 500M users paying $500M dollars was more than enough to fund his tiny team (of 30?), but when the offer went up to 19B$ it's just kind of hard to turn down - there's extreme opportunity cost there. Most people would sell before that, 19B$ of principle is quite a lot. I think it's just if you're empire building - and Zuck is insanely good at this, one…
Highly doubt that - I feel like most people I communicate with on WhatsApp are for group chats vs individual messages might be imesssage or signal or many other platforms.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
No deals sending to the same carrier? That is how it initially was in the US. Some of us had unlimited plans but others had like 400 texts a month paying a rate after, but no quota for texts within the carrier network.
The issue with SMS even if unlimited, in Europe a lot of people need to send text messages across borders. EU mandated free roaming, which makes SMS billing under the same pricing conditions when you're roaming but doesn't say anything about sending SMS abroad when you're in your home country. Also what happens if you need to send an SMS to a Swiss or UK number? While effectively unlimited plans do exist as carriers…
Does anybody have stats on how many people are O.K. paying for their core services, i.e. how many people pay for paid personal e-mail services? I just don't want to believe that our services have to be paid for through proxy by giving huge cut to 3rd parties. The quality goes down both as UX and as core content, our attention span is destroyed, our privacy is violated and our political power is being stolen as conten…
I remember when Whatsapp became a paid app, I can’t remember the details as I believe they varied by platform (iOS vs Android) but it was either €0.79 or €0.99, I’m not sure if one off or yearly payment, but it doesn’t matter. I, as the “computer guy”, had friends and family asking how to pirate it. This is coming from SMS costing €0.25 per message (text only!) and also coming from people who would gladly pay €3 for…
I guess this was expected, but it makes me feel really powerless in the sense that I can't really move away from WhatsApp. I have a couple of friends that I message via Signal and even convinced my dad to use it a while back, but here in Brazil WhatsApp is _everything_, and I doubt most people care about this at all. In my case, I'd love to just go over to Signal fully but then I couldn't talk to family, friends, and…
Yup. Non-traveling US Americans mostly won’t understand how critical WhatsApp is in many parts of the world, for more than a decade. It’s much much stronger than the iMessage norm in the US. Businesses put WhatsApp numbers on their stores, and it’s often the only way to get a hold of a person. I would bet it’s more used than email, especially for young people. If WhatsApp went down for a week, it would seriously impe…