Ask HN: How would you convince your friends and family to switch from WhatsApp?
As everyone must have seen today, facebook updated WhatsApps privacy policy to start sharing data collected from WhatsApp with other F*ckbook products.
I'd love to switch but by doing so I would be isolating myself from friends and family that use WhatsApps exclusively.
How would you go about convincing them to switch to something like Telegram?
209 comments
[ 1.9 ms ] story [ 226 ms ] threadEveryone I know is able enough to administer their own gizmos. If someone asks, I point them to the zero config option that will require zero tech skills. Computer maintenance is mostly unskilled drudgery nowadays, not wizardry.
And it seems like may others do too: https://twitter.com/signalapp/status/1347240006444675072
- the app is now so much better that I was confused last time I used WhatsApp (I also think WhatsApp must have gone backwards, it was better before, wasn't it?)
- better admin tools for groups (mute, disallow stickers etc)
- disappearing chats. More convenience than security IMO but still something I use with my wife. I always lock my phone, but she lets our kids borrow it sometimes and I'd not to share everything we tell each with the kids :-)
- scheduled messages: remember lunch Lisa!
- and for your geek friends: actually open source, multiple client goodness. And APIs. And bots that you can create yourselves.
So I guess, I'd show them animated stickers. WhatsApp feels archaic tbh
Wish I had your family. Telegram's new Group voice chat feature (Push to talk) might push them over though.
My Mom yelled at me for endorsing Signal to her. She said: "All my friends are on WhatsApp. I don't want to install another app just because of one person."
If they don’t care enough to install a free app to talk to me, good riddance.
In a couple of years it will be some other application that will be the top dog. "Hey what is your ICQ number?"
It also depends if you are considered a hub or spoke in your social circles. If you are a 'spoke' then getting others to change would be hard. If you are a 'hub' you have better success.
I mean, they are not going to stop using it for other people, but at least your communication will be somewhat private. At least until WhatsApp finds a way to siphon data from other apps that is.
I agree with your position. It’s just worth noting that you do indeed have to be willing to walk, potentially permanently.
as for the rest, I let them handle the inconvenience of having to call/email me stuff... sometimes they dont, and thats fine, I just dont bother. if its important, people find a way.
0. Removing myself from all active WhatsApp groups.
1. Setting the WhatsApp status to 'Message me on Signal or Email me' and not responding to non-important messages till they message on Signal or Email me.
2. When someone asks if we can continue our conversation on WhatsApp, politely informing them that I don't use WhatsApp and asking them to message on Signal.
3. Setting a Tasker auto reply for WhatsApp, informing the sender that I'm not available on WhatsApp and they have to message me on Signal or Email me.
3.a. Updated the reply message with 'My WhatsApp account will be deleted on Feb 8 for not accepting new T&C' and has set the status as such too.
4.Setting Signal as the default SMS client (Can invite people easily via SMS, perhaps added protection against SMS exploits).
Thanks for this :-)
Edit: https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=net.dinglisch....
So Android has this app and it allows your to automate sms among other things.
The issue here is that it's a sudden approach. Humans are creatures of habit, and shifting interpersonal relationships slowly matters. This is not an API migration to a new provider where you push a commit or two and it's done. If you explain why, then the other person may even sympathise. If you don't, you will be seen as unreasonable and puritanical.
>Second, the cost structure matters quite a bit. It happens in our first example that making lemonade compliant with Kosher laws doesn’t change the price by much, not enough to justify inventories.
Might makes right. Being intolerant AND either needing little economic/physical power, or bringing with you significant economic/physical power is what effects change.
Which is the problem with convincing people to switch apps. Either you are important enough to the person that needs to switch apps, or switching the app is so low cost that the person that needs to switch doesn't care. Unfortunately, the switching costs is usually too high for most people's tastes.
Or a mixture. In the case of eg. Matrix or IRC, the cost can be tapping a link and typing a couple things into the browser. That’s probably not low enough for most people to do for everyone they’re in any group chat with, but I think it’s reasonable to do for a family member (my immediate and extended family were willing to do that with Jitsi Meet for me), and most people have a few family members, including enough techy people to make a difference and plant seeds for some change.
My primary mode of communication is email, 100% for professional communication. Yes, there are people who are offended when I impose such communication criteria and I've lost business opportunities.
But thoughtful communications due to non-real-time nature of email has qualitatively increased and not having to touch the phone often has resulted in better physical and mental health(the whole reason for me making these major changes in first place)[1].
[1]https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25619584 (Related comment on another thread with more details and a good counter opinion).
Why are you suggesting that everyone needs to bow to peer pressure or they’re arrogant?
If I suddenly decide one day I don’t want to drink alcohol but all my friends do, if they see me as arrogant because of that, that’s their problem, not mine. I’m under no obligation to slowly stop drinking because of them.
I have done that a few years ago though, and neither I'm isolated nor I feel like I've lost anything meaningful.
I'm still in touch with my dear friends and family, and that will continue without WhatsApp.
The world functioned fine before Messenger.
Pick up a phone, or for that matter talk to people in person. It’s not rocket science.
I agree with this statement. It's always a matter of priorities and perceived cost vs profit.
In any case, I never said it was going to work the same for everybody.
I have simply given my personal anecdote of how I used to believe that there would be a high social cost associated with closing those accounts, and in the end I found the opposite to be true.
I know of many other such anecdotes, but I also know of a few rare ones where the cost was too big and they decided to reopen said accounts.
As always, YMMV - but please don't spread the idea that it will be costly for everybody. It might just be that people feel better and find other ways to communicate, or it may be that they decide to rejoin such services.
You can't expect everyone to switch all at once. If you really want to get people on the app you have to be smarter about how you get people there.
If you suddenly decide to stop drinking, it's not arrogant and I would hope your friends would be supportive.
Arrogant would be expecting them to all stop going to the bar because you don't want go anymore.
And in fact if more people had the courage to buck the trends and potential be “isolated” then we wouldn’t be ceding so much of our privacy to these social media companies as we are now.
A phone call always works, no matter where in the world you are. We don’t actually “need” these services, as much as they would like us to believe so.
If you act unilaterally in a group context you should accept that too. Supporting your choice of communication only really extends to "oh yeah, crazydoggers isn't here now where did I put that app they use?". So you might hear from them less, but nobody is at fault.
Facebook is.
Run it on webbrowser at home / cloud instance and proxy msgs but drop all FB trackings?
Any pro/con to this approach?
If not separate hardware, Android VM or Anbox would theoretically work but would be of more hassle considering WhatsApp actively detects 3rd party ROMS and android VMs/Anbox are not generally stable.
After they removed it due to lack of active users i gave them a bad rating on the play store only to return because i dropped my mistrust of them as a middleman.
Setting it as default SMS client prevents to get 2FA tokens from applications like Amazon, Dropbox, Paypal, or at least, they come with a huge delay.
While this might not work as an argument to convince friends and family to stay away from Facebook (et al) it is the actual reason for doing so. It is just that the argument smacks too much of politics and zealotry to get people to change their ways.
To answer the original poster's question I'd suggest to simply use something else and give those friends and family your contact info on that other thing. There are plenty of options out there, all with their own pros and cons. The easiest sell will probably be Telegram since it offers a far superior user experience over WhatsApp, especially for those who use more than a single device. That this implies that Telegram stores user data and as such theoretically could do all sorts of nefarious things with it is just as interesting to the average user as the fact that Facebook will have been abusing WhatsApp data for years now, most people simply don't care. Telegram now also offers video calls by the way which takes away the last advantage WhatsApp had.
Working for AdTech doesn't mean undoing the good. Given that the internet is pretty young, there is nothing to undo. Working for AdTech means improving what's already out there.
Don't get me wrong. I hate ads. Who doesn't? Everyone in AdTech uses ad blocker, such is life ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ But, every time I launch a new project, I need some form of advertisement. It can be be Show HN, Product Hunt or Google PPC. But I need ads. You need ads. And if you don't need them now, you most likely will in the future.
I obviously don't know everything about AdTech and I'm sure there are a ton of shady players, exploiting your software/hardware to sneak some ads in (reputable firms do not appreciate such behavior). But from what I do know, the kind of data being shared by apps is so boring that it's actually in a user's best interest to allow the data to be shared. Otherwise doctors will see ads about vaping and fishers will see ads about the latest JavaScript IDEs. Which is why I asked, what exactly is being shared by WhatsApp? I honestly don't give a shit about Facebook knowing my gender, age, the city I'm from, etc. I'm 34, male, living in New York. Now what? In contrast, if WhatsApp shares your messages and files with third-party companies, then that's for sure a shady shit that affect your security. A whole separate conversation.
Personalized ads put you into an information buble, collect your personal data and manipulate you into buying what you don't need, harming you and the environment. See also: https://www.socialcooling.com/.
Also, what Facebook is doing is beyond unethical: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24579498.
Who the hell do you think you are to decide what is in my best interest? You are attempting to STEAL my attention. This is abusive behaviour. I don't want this!
Also:
If I go on a page for fishing stuff, the shop is free to advertise certain fishing stuff products they want to push. ON THEIR PAGE. They do not need external content tracking people to the dog food page to show them the fishing ads there too. You don't need any data for that and nobody would block ads like that because they'd be part of the content of the fishing stuff store.
You are telling a story which is based upon lies you hide behind this what you are not telling AND YOU KNOW IT! You are one of those shady players and you've shown it RIGHT HERE.
> Who the hell do you think you are to decide what is in my best interest?
I'm not deciding anything for you. I can only recommend. You either share your data or you don't. It's your decision.
> If I go on a page for fishing stuff, the shop is free to advertise certain fishing stuff products they want to push. ON THEIR PAGE.
Of course they can do so. Except the times when they want to maximize their ad revenue, so they sell the ad slot to other companies.
I may decide because I know how ad-blockers work (and even there it drips through as you must know best) but most out there don't decide. They are being robbed along the way without even knowing it. You rob them of their data, their attention and divert it afterwards for your profit. You're being paid to make this crime work.
> Of course they can do so. Except the times when they want to maximize their ad revenue, so they sell the ad slot to other companies.
And how is the fishing shop becoming an ad reseller something that would make your point above valid? Your attention rape has nothing to do anymore with me getting fishing stuff which I've been looking for. The purpose completely switched over to third parties. Meaning your employee and the shop proprietor sharing the profits of this crime. Completely unrelated to the products the shop sells.
It is you who provide the most intrusive and aggressive weapons for this crime. The owner would have no way to do this by himself.
Active profiling is needed so that tobacco ads do not show up in your kids' newsfeed.
> b) to make sure they don't see any ad, period.
Nobody likes ads, but there are millions of businesses with ads being the only revenue source. No ads - no service. It's not because site owners want to show you ads, it's because they cannot sustain without not showing you these ads.
Tobacco ads should only be in publications targeted at tobacco consumers, i.e. "Smokers Digest" or whatever. Yes, that limits their exposure. That is a feature, not a bug.
On the "no ads, no service" remark I know of plenty of useful sites - this one being one of them - which get their funding from different sources. For some - me being one of them - this probably goes for the majority of sites they frequent, others might fare differently. The thing is, it is not just the fact that there are ads which turn people to ad blockers, it is the fact that there are those AdTech companies doing their best to syphon up their data so as to badger them with ads wherever they go. Had ads been like they were in magazines, i.e. anonymous and related to the subject matter, there would have been far less incentive to block them. That bird has flown a long time ago though, something for which AdTech is partly responsible next to the fact that ad servers have been used to spread malware and that the ads themselves went from simple banners to screen-dominating blinking screeching monstrosities.
Apart from the targeted ads there exist context-based ads (just like in the newspapers from your example). Show me a scientific proof that the former work better.
That's none of your business.
The contents of my messages, photos of my kids, who I talk to and when, my location. Is that enough for you?
I don't know. Do you? The terms and conditions say they do it for "operating and providing our Services". It's vague on purpose. And it's not only FB, it's their "business partners" (read it as: whoever pays us) too.
"As part of the Facebook family of companies, WhatsApp receives information from, and shares information with, this family of companies. We may use the information we receive from them, and they may use the information we share with them, to help operate, provide, improve, understand, customize, support, and market our Services and their offerings. This includes helping improve infrastructure and delivery systems, understanding how our Services or theirs are used, securing systems, and fighting spam, abuse, or infringement activities. Facebook and the other companies in the Facebook family also may use information from us to improve your experiences within their services such as making product suggestions (for example, of friends or connections, or of interesting content) and showing relevant offers and ads. However, your WhatsApp messages will not be shared onto Facebook for others to see. In fact, Facebook will not use your WhatsApp messages for any purpose other than to assist us in operating and providing our Services."
https://www.whatsapp.com/legal/updates/privacy-policy/?lang=...
Messsages
"We do not retain your messages in the ordinary course of providing our Services to you. Instead, your messages are stored on your device and not typically stored on our servers. Once your messages are delivered, they are deleted from our servers."
Photos
"When a user forwards media within a message, we store that media temporarily in encrypted form on our servers"
Automatically Collected Information
Usage And Log Information, Device And Connection Information, Location Information and Cookies.
What am I missing? What exactly is WhatsApp doing wrong? Once again, I hate shady shit, but I'm not seeing anything crazy in here.
All in all, nothing special. Nobody shares your messages/media.
> The contents of my messages, photos of my kids, who I talk to and when, my location. Is that enough for you?
Look, this is simply not truth. You are ex-aggregating things and create a panic out of nothing. If you don't like them knowing your location, fine, turn Location Services off. As for media, nobody cares about photos of your kids. It's a not monetizable content.
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25416123
edit: typo
I am French and we do use WA a lot but only on a social level, not (yet?) as a way to contact businesses.
It really elevated the app to something else when we were in a sea of spam and dealing with old people who forget their login names and passwords who didn't like having to login.
And FB made a great call about it being worth $20B even though it was shocking at the time.
So I will accept the terms of use without reading them like anyone else, continue to vote for politicians that do laws to protect my privacy, such as the GDPR, and continue to fight the privacy abuses at my own scale.
[0] https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/wkuDgmpxwbu2M2k3w/you-have-a...
There is nothing pragmatic in helping Facebook dominate our lives entirely.
Perhaps for that user, this is the pragmatic approach.
To me, it's the opposite.
For business, you may not want to burn a lead channel - it's up to you, but you could segregate the two and not share personal stuff on WA.
Just start using both, and convince a few close family members (spouse/parents) to start using the app. People cannot be forced into using a new product. On the other hand, they will automatically use the better product if their network is on both.
Now my parents and partner are comfortable with both Whatsapp and Telegram. They use Whatsapp more heavily than I do, but they can comfortably use both. Since Telegram is better (from a product perspective), they also use Telegram when talking to each other.
IMO we can't tear down network effects easily, especially when the negative consequences of using one of the products is seemingly non consequential. We just have to move brick by brick.
FWIW you can just disable this in the settings.
These posts seem to get a higher than normal amount of engagement also. weird.
There's nothing even unexpected going on with HN.
Granted there was a white lie in there since I use Signal as my default app for sms too. Nonetheless it did the trick.
Friends is the one that's hard. In my case it's WeChat not WhatsApp. I only use WeChat because a huge fraction of my friends use only WeChat and nothing else. Considering the stronghold WeChat has in China now it's almost impossible to get anyone to switch at least until something else in China can compete with it.
I have a separate phone just for WeChat because of the number of egregious privacy violations it appears to execute on my phone.
I simply told my family I was closing my Facebook/IG account and said I'd be pleased to use an alternative platform if they'd join me. The result was that one of my sons set up a Slack chat and everyone moved there.
1. Keep WhatsApp (for now)
2. Whenever people send you a WhatsApp do this: reply on iMessage if they’re in the iOS world. If they’re in the Android party tell them to switch to Signal
Works like a charm. Thus, I am continuously depopulating WhatsApp to the point where I can safely delete it.
I guess people are willing to switch if they care about you a lot. in other words, most won't.
[0] https://conversations.im/