Dystopian only in the mind of a sci-fi fan. In practice it's a free communication service that helped millions to connect. No one forced people to use WhatsApp like something from 1984, people chose it from the various alternatives.

In fact, a lot of people prefer Telegram, and a lot use neither, preferring good old cellphone conversations. Oh wait, isn't that a closed protocol that dominates all offline communications? How dystopian...

You are under the impression that people in 1984 are forced into that position. These situations don't happen by force, it's gradual change over time, like the frog you slowly boil.

What is dystopian is the amount of control corporations have on our day to day lives, as well as the freedom to study and follow our every moves and thoughts and do so for profit or other ends. That is dystopian, not the technology itself, the usage that they make of it and the obliviousness of the vast majority of its users as to what they are up to with it.

The whole point is being forced to do it or not. I do not use Facebook, any Google service or anything that could track me, because I care. There's no control here, I'm not being forced to use those services and even if I were to use them - like most people who do not care for their privacy - it's just information being voluntarily shared. It makes no difference for them, and they can stop using those services/use an alternative any time they want.

GSM (assuming that's what is used in Brazil) isn't free of patents, but at least everyone could (in theory) start their own telecom company and compete with the another ones. And I assume in reality (even in Brazil) customer could switch from a telecom operator to another if they are not happy with the service provided by the first one.

If I want to communicate to some another WhatsApp user, I need to use WhatsApp.

What does one thing have to do with another? If I want to communicate with you on HN I need a HN account. How is that dystopian or what does it have to do with protocols?

If you want to communicate with another person you can use Telegram or whatever you want.

Some people will never be happy with proprietary software

It's not without recourse. It's just a system that became a defacto standard. If WhatsApp goes away for good, surely everyone will move on to something else, maybe even considering the "centralizedness" of it, but the transition costs are there, especially on a case with such short notice.

> A proprietary communication protocol made by a foreign company dominating all communications without recourse sounds like something out of 1984.

Yes but still better than orkut, I guess...

Don't forget, a lot of diseases are hereditary, so your children are screwed as well.