If enough people join you, it's a win. If not, you've wasted your effort / money / vote / time.
Sometimes it's hard to discern if that critical mass exists.
How did it start? Some people adopted it, then their friends adopted it, etc. How does it stop? The same way!
If people are made aware and meet resistance (e.g., a person they really want to keep in touch with who doesn’t use that app), things change.
A boycott that does not drive the company out of business is not automatically unsuccessful: more people learn about the issue, some stores might start stocking competitor’s goods, etc. In a functioning system, if a bunch of people voted for the loser the winner would feel the pressure to adjust policies (vs. if no one did and the winner feels righteous enacting the extreme version of the policies you disagree with), and if not well next time more people may support the losing party.
Chat programs are not stores in any typical sense of the word.
Chat programs are effectively clubhouses. Convincing a person that they’ve joined the wrong club, invested time and effort in the wrong club, and should make better and more informed choices in clubs…
Lol. Have you MET a human before?
Good luck and don’t hold your breath.
Chat programs are also not clubs. There is no associated identity. No hardcore WhatsAppers it Telegrammers.
In fact, if you regularly meet actual humans, you might find out that most of them simply don’t care.
You dislike WhatsApp? Give them something equally convenient but that cares about privacy and they will just use it. Refuse to add them on WhatsApp and if you are an interesting person they will install whatever you use, even Signal, to stay in touch.
Please keep it polite. I don't see how you can know that commentator's intent.
I also think that WhatsApp is evil, but that doesn't change the fact that a lot of communication takes place via this medium. Doing without it altogether has real opportunity costs. In this respect, it's up to each individual to decide whether and how to use it. It's similar to criticism of consumption and capitalism: in the end, you still have to buy your food somewhere and pay for it with money.
There's some opportunity cost you just can't accept. If your only two options are a) don't use Whatsapp or b) use Whatsapp to help your elderly neighbors, I'm going to think you're not a good person if you stick to your ideology in this specific case. You can't really start arguing 'what-ifs' because you don't know the details of their situation and the decisions they made, so we should take them at their word that those are the two options they considered.
All to say, the world isn't as black and white as sticking to your guns no matter what. People that want true change would do well to remember that, since a majority of folks do not think along these lines and act with much more simple motivators.
Coincidentally, just like not covering the nose with a mask in protest, what you do only makes the problem worse.
The only way forward is to stop using such an app with explanations, offer alternatives to people seeking to contact you, support legislation that breaks shady business models like that, etc. Sadly, few people have courage to look weird, boring or slightly crazy in this way.
(I have no such problems with WhatsApp, but I’m guilty of the same with regards to Telegram. It’s built intentionally insecure by default: I have literally no contacts who use E2EE chats now, because those are opt-in and so half-assedly implemented—I used to have a couple of “secret chats” but one vanished and another broke so nothing is delivered anymore; we switched to plaintext and I keep postponing quitting the app.)