It depends on where you live. Over here my last Covid vaccine appointment was given over WhatsApp and the guys that came to install fiber in my apartment did the whole thing over WhatsApp as well. Every single chatgroup I have with friends and family is on WhatsApp. I’ve tried to surface the notion of Telegram and Signal being things at points and it’s an absolute no-go. People don’t say “I’ll text you”, they say “I’ll WhatsApp you”.
My mom calls it “sending a Whats” and I have never hated anything more in my life.
So yeah, very regional, but in the places where it’s the default, it’s the default hard, both on Android and iPhone. People in the US Apple bubble severely misunderstand to what extent Meta won the social media race. I don’t like it, but it is what it is.
Over here my last Covid vaccine appointment was given over WhatsApp and the guys that came to install fiber in my apartment did the whole thing over WhatsApp as well
If you want to roleplay this, then you may get a look, considering it comes preinstalled in both iPhones and pretty much every Android phone.
People are still aware of phone numbers existing, so they’ll figure it out. But like having an email address or a mobile phone, the default assumption is you have a WhatsApp account associated to your phone number and it makes a number of things more convenient.
I don’t want to not have people reach me through the most convenient means.
I would very much prefer that not to compromise more of my privacy than absolutely necessary, for sure. But I do want a service like WhatsApp that everybody I know is also using. That’s a good thing. If Line was the thing everybody uses I’d be on Line. Back when it was MSN Messenger (because that’s what we had, ICQ was never a thing), I was on that.
I don’t aim to not use WhatsApp, I expect regulation to make it safe, just like it does for food and medicine and roads and everything else.
Ah, yes, that’s why I keep my walls unpainted. Can’t trust big paint with the not putting lead in that. Never going to happen.
You’re not pushing back against anything, you’re arguing about Meta’s nichest product on the nichest social media of them all. At some point one will have to assume the arguing is the point, more than enacting any change.
Between regulation of the techbro oligarchy or… whatever this thread is, I know where my money goes. The opposite is straight up libertarian talk.
Ah, yes, that’s why we can trust the big banks not to tank the global economy, because the government regulates them and because they’ll punish anyone who tries. They certainly wouldn’t just fill their pockets and reward them instead while punishing absolutely no one responsible, right?
Libertarian talking points again. Every instance of a government failing to do their jobs is an indictment on the concept of governments.
There are two things you need for effective governance: effective people in government and effective design of government.
If you don’t have those, your only priority is to get those (so get to it, Americans). If you do have those, your job is to oversee them doing their job.
Neither of those tasks particularly requires getting into spats with random Internet people in obscure corners of social media to flaunt how much you dislike anything associated with a particular brand you’ve chosen as an arbitrary avatar for a specific issue. One could argue for an organized boycott, but that’s not what’s happening here, and if it was it’d be the most ineffectual example of one on record.
It depends on where you live. Over here my last Covid vaccine appointment was given over WhatsApp and the guys that came to install fiber in my apartment did the whole thing over WhatsApp as well. Every single chatgroup I have with friends and family is on WhatsApp. I’ve tried to surface the notion of Telegram and Signal being things at points and it’s an absolute no-go. People don’t say “I’ll text you”, they say “I’ll WhatsApp you”.
My mom calls it “sending a Whats” and I have never hated anything more in my life.
So yeah, very regional, but in the places where it’s the default, it’s the default hard, both on Android and iPhone. People in the US Apple bubble severely misunderstand to what extent Meta won the social media race. I don’t like it, but it is what it is.
“I don’t have WhatsApp”
If you want to roleplay this, then you may get a look, considering it comes preinstalled in both iPhones and pretty much every Android phone.
People are still aware of phone numbers existing, so they’ll figure it out. But like having an email address or a mobile phone, the default assumption is you have a WhatsApp account associated to your phone number and it makes a number of things more convenient.
I “roleplay” it all the time with phone numbers, names, emails, etc.
Enter fake ones or just refuse and they say “okay”.
Yeeeah, we’re not hearing each other.
I don’t want to not have people reach me through the most convenient means.
I would very much prefer that not to compromise more of my privacy than absolutely necessary, for sure. But I do want a service like WhatsApp that everybody I know is also using. That’s a good thing. If Line was the thing everybody uses I’d be on Line. Back when it was MSN Messenger (because that’s what we had, ICQ was never a thing), I was on that.
I don’t aim to not use WhatsApp, I expect regulation to make it safe, just like it does for food and medicine and roads and everything else.
That’s a naive and ignorant position. That’s never going to happen.
As long as you continue to not push against this sort of thing, it will continue to be pushed upon you.
There are federated, interoperable, and open-source alternatives. Make them use them.
Ah, yes, that’s why I keep my walls unpainted. Can’t trust big paint with the not putting lead in that. Never going to happen.
You’re not pushing back against anything, you’re arguing about Meta’s nichest product on the nichest social media of them all. At some point one will have to assume the arguing is the point, more than enacting any change.
Between regulation of the techbro oligarchy or… whatever this thread is, I know where my money goes. The opposite is straight up libertarian talk.
Ah, yes, that’s why we can trust the big banks not to tank the global economy, because the government regulates them and because they’ll punish anyone who tries. They certainly wouldn’t just fill their pockets and reward them instead while punishing absolutely no one responsible, right?
Libertarian talking points again. Every instance of a government failing to do their jobs is an indictment on the concept of governments.
There are two things you need for effective governance: effective people in government and effective design of government.
If you don’t have those, your only priority is to get those (so get to it, Americans). If you do have those, your job is to oversee them doing their job.
Neither of those tasks particularly requires getting into spats with random Internet people in obscure corners of social media to flaunt how much you dislike anything associated with a particular brand you’ve chosen as an arbitrary avatar for a specific issue. One could argue for an organized boycott, but that’s not what’s happening here, and if it was it’d be the most ineffectual example of one on record.