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A comment on WhatsApp alternatives that respect privacy.

Re:WhatsApp alternatives that respect privacy by Darmody on Monday February 15, 2021 @10:13AM (#26143431)
The real problem is almost nobody cares and those who care, might end up giving up.

A messaging app is not like a personal app that you use on your own. Its value is not only in the software itself but also in the number of users. It took Telegram years to get 500 million users. Now people are being told, "switch to this other app, it's better", "look how many alternatives". How long would it take Signal to be an alternative to Telegram user-wise? And once they get there, some problem will pop up and then what? Do we migrate to a new app and wait 10 years to have almost all our friends there?

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Re:WhatsApp alternatives that respect privacy by rimeice on Monday February 15, 2021 @10:23AM (#26143538)
It's pretty straight forward to have both Whatsapp and [alternative messaging app] installed on your phone. You still have an SMS app on your phone, which was the primary messaging application prior to Whatsapp. A lot of people migrated to Whatsapp because it was more secure and private than SMS. Now that advantage is being questioned, I think it's logical to see a migration to something more secure or private.
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Re:WhatsApp alternatives that respect privacy by j3th9n on Monday February 15, 2021 @10:45AM (#26143767)
Most people migrated to WhatsApp because it was free, not because it was more secure and private, for a long time it wasn't: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reception_and_criticism_of_Wha...
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Re:WhatsApp alternatives that respect privacy by j45 on Monday February 15, 2021 @11:48AM (#26144391)
I remember people installing WhatsApp because it was the easiest inter device chat other than sms. It was BBM for the masses.
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Re:WhatsApp alternatives that respect privacy by rimeice on Monday February 15, 2021 @11:29AM (#26144203)
"A lot of people" is a bit different to "most people". SMS is free in the same sense that Whatsapp is free and you need a phone contract to use either when you're not in a wifi network. In fact there was a period where adding 3G to your phone contract was noticeably more expensive.

Regardless, my point is that there is a logical path that some people will take to move to more private options. I'm doing exactly what I described in my comment, a bunch of my friends are doing it and I don't think we're that exceptional.

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Re:WhatsApp alternatives that respect privacy by _susanoo on Monday February 15, 2021 @10:45AM (#26143768)
I don't think many people migrated to Whatsapp because it's more secure and private than SMS. I think people migrated because it was free and it had better functionality than SMS. If they did migrate because of privacy and sercurity, how come they don't migrate to apps with better privacy right now?
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Re:WhatsApp alternatives that respect privacy by hulitu on Monday February 15, 2021 @12:13PM (#26144680)
People migrated to whatsapp because you could talk for free over your internet connection at home. At least in poorer countries.
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Re:WhatsApp alternatives that respect privacy by rimeice on Monday February 15, 2021 @11:31AM (#26144230)
> how come they don't migrate to apps with better privacy right now?

They are. https://twitter.com/signalapp/status/1349577579091566592

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Re:WhatsApp alternatives that respect privacy by selfhoster11 on Monday February 15, 2021 @11:54AM (#26144440)
With that approach, people will end up with 5 messaging apps installed because the friend circles don't perfectly overlap with their app selection.
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Re:WhatsApp alternatives that respect privacy by nowherebeen on Monday February 15, 2021 @02:07PM (#26145971)
Everyone used to have only 1 email address. Nowadays, most people have multiple email addresses for different use cases (work, spam, personal). I think this will be the norm for messaging apps as well.
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Re:WhatsApp alternatives that respect privacy by ubercow13 on Monday February 15, 2021 @12:02PM (#26144529)
Isn't this already normal?
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Re:WhatsApp alternatives that respect privacy by wobbly_bush on Monday February 15, 2021 @12:25PM (#26144794)
How is the inherently bad? With most people having phones as powerful as computers, there aren't any technical limitations to this.
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Re:WhatsApp alternatives that respect privacy by dennis_moore on Monday February 15, 2021 @01:56PM (#26145850)
My phone may be able to handle running a thousand messaging apps at once, but my brain can handle at most one or two before it melts from the sheer ridiculousness of having to deal with the different user interfaces, privacy policies, compatibility issues, etc. of a zillion companies just for something so bizarrely simple as sending a message to a friend.
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Re:WhatsApp alternatives that respect privacy by rimeice on Monday February 15, 2021 @12:37PM (#26144929)
Yeh I think having 5 messaging apps on your phone is fairly normal already.
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Re:WhatsApp alternatives that respect privacy by robjan on Tuesday February 16, 2021 @05:15AM (#26152606)
If you have only five you are already lucky.
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Re:WhatsApp alternatives that respect privacy by luplex on Monday February 15, 2021 @10:37AM (#26143679)
The solution is to use interoperable messengers, like Element which works with all other matrix servers and clients.
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Re:WhatsApp alternatives that respect privacy by Normal_gaussian on Monday February 15, 2021 @05:42PM (#26148566)
People care so little that I've had to disable the "X is now on Signal" notifications because dozens of people I used to know (school, uni, hobbies) who aren't on the tech spectrum have been installing it.
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