Email, docs, music, maps etc have reasonable alternatives and you don’t depend on others to switch (a gmail user will receive my email from tuta). But with WhatsApp either you conceal and use it or you just don’t talk to people (tried convincing them to switch to signal and it simply doesn’t happen)
How do you deal with it?
Don’t use it. Refuse to talk with anyone that says they want me to use it. It’s been working great.
Had to install and use an anonymous number that no one has for like 2 things that I was really in need to for interacting with some businesses though and for when many people were laid off in the company and that’s where I needed to find some info.
Either I use Signal only or SMS which has worked great for many years. Now with RCS it’s the same as any other internet based chat even with video calls.
It takes time. I’ve been “indoctinating” my family fo years. And that really just means reinforcing things we all, “regular” people included, know about big tech. Part of that meant straight up telling them I wouldn’t use anything other than Signal. That worked, and a few years later I now have my mom on Linux. Sometimes doing the right thing means being stubborn and putting your foot down
Edit: my parents have both become open source evangelists, and my mom has asked me more than once the difference between Free Software and oss. My parents are also both pretty conservative so it wasn’t easy to turn them. But like I said. Put your foot down. Tell them you are doing the right thing, and if it comes to it, withold tech support 😂
I just don’t talk to what Zuckerberg refers to as “dumb fucks”
It’s seriously so self fulfilling. Markey mark made it so easy to not be a dumb fuck. It’s literal actual written instructions on how to not be a dumb fuck. Millions fail the written instructions.
TIL he calls the people that send their data to him “dumb fucks”. But I don’t get what instructions you are talking about? 🤔
I don’t have Whatsapp and I will never use it. If people don’t want to use Signal, Telegram, XMPP, Matrix, SimpleX, or Delta Chat, we will talk over RCS/SMS.
I find not having friends helps with this
Naomi Brockwell TV on YT or Odyssey had a video about that, forgot the name. You basically make it more painful to communicate on other platforms, reward for using your preferred platform (e.g. offer tickets to a game through preferred platform).
Don’t expect people to move completely, including close friends
I’ve only met one person who actually uses Whatsapp before and asked me to download it. My mom just asked me if I knew what it was 2 months ago because I guess it’s popular on cruises. It certainly doesn’t seem popular enough to have to deal with here at least
You’re in a lucky part of the world. In my area, Whatsapp is used a lot for sharing attachments mainly, e.g sending a photo of a receipt for claiming warranty, contacting government officials, etc. People here do understand that if I say I don’t use it, and even though they agree to use SMS and email, it still slightly annoys them as it is out of their norm. I am living by till now without Whatsapp, but it’s really difficult.
Never used it. I have app fatigue. I am forced to download so many apps, make so many accounts, I really dont want to make another one. Sucks to hear how few options some countries have. The people who matter wont care how you want to keep in touch.
Got my entire family on Signal.
I have a non gms ROM (e/os) I have shelter (work profile jail), and WhatsApp is living in the jail and doesn’t see any contacts or rest of the phone… I split my comms to (beeper for all texts that I don’t care about for privacy that I can not get away from e…g LinkedIn/WhatsApp/g messenger but I have signal/briar that actually runs on the phone (non shelter). And I refuse to add them to beeper.
Thats the neat part, you dont
Unlike all the apps you named it, “users” is what make it still alive to this day
You gonna have to use it with Signal if you want to use Signal that much, or just dont
I use it via Beeper On-Device
https://blog.beeper.com/2025/07/16/the-new-beeper/?ref=beeper-faq
Thank you, that’s a great take
