The only people that believe I’m worth contacting have already switched to Signal and the ones that refused to switch lost contact with me. Their loss I guess.
In Germany too and I remember how upsetting it was to me from the beginning. There were third party messengers that supported established (at the time) services like ICQ or live messenger but people got onto the hot new thing because it’s so much like SMS.
I remember starting to use it because texting was pretty expensive and limited at the time. Whatsapp was free (group) texting when on WiFi and still cheaper when on cellular. If texting wasn’t so expensive at the time I really don’t think whatsapp would’ve caught on like it did. Now people are just used to it so that’s probably why it’s still big
I lived the switch in second person. My sister kept running out of SMSs to text her boyfriend, and our elder sister told her about Whatsapp and how she could have basically infinite text messages
Exactly. And, combined with the shared amount of texts/minutes (which IIRC for me was something like 100), actually calling people and wanting to text your friends you’d run out of texts very quick. WhatsApp was a godsend at the time.
Yeah they’re all on Facebook Messenger which sucks. I’ve managed to switch a few in my surroundings to Signal but I still need to keep Messenger for holdouts.
Thankfully I have managed to get everyone to switch from Messenger to Signal, atleast for talking to me haha. Two other family members being privacy oriented too really helped getting the rest of the family moved over.
Because in my country historically the telecom companies are charging 0.30€ per SMS (text) and 2€ per MMS (text with photo).
So WhatsApp when they launched with their “1€/lifetime” offer on the iPhone 3GS they were the right app at the right time and became the de facto replacement for any kind of messaging. It’s insane how basically overnight they replaced msn messenger and Skype because it was so convenient (Microsoft never did a smartphone client for msn messenger, only unofficial ones. It was available on dumbphones but it used SMS from the plan to send/receive, nobody used it because you needed to be a millionaire to afford it)
SMS now in my country is only for receiving OTP codes, for the rest is WhatsApp, because still in 2026 the telecoms are still charging 2€ for each MMS sent and nobody wants to risk huge bills. This includes iMessage because if a chat suddenly goes green and you didn’t notice, it costs dozens of euro
Your telecoms are ripping you off. SMS messages ‘ride’ on the normal connection mechanism to cell phone towers. If your phone connects to a cell phone tower, it already has the space and data to attach an sms and requires nothing else. SMS are ‘free’ from the infrastructure point of view.
Maybe lobby your representatives to make charging for them illegal and you’ll get proper messaging back without selling off your data.
Because it’s unfair to assume that everyone has the necessary education or awareness of what the internet is and what online privacy means that we take for granted.
You need at least 2 people to form a conversation.
One of them has Whatsapp, Telegram, signal, MSTeams, smoke signals and those flags that ships used to communicate.
The other only has Whatsapp.
They are going to communicate over Whatsapp.
Even if the dude with 1000 communication methods meets another dude with 1000 communication methods, they are going to use WhatsApp, because they are used to using Whatsapp with everyone, so it’s just easier to have everyone on WhatsApp.
oh, my wife and i are [mode of communication] geeks. she knows 3 different sign languages, i know a really rare one, we both speak just enough of like 17 different languages to order food and find the library and bathroom wherever we go. Also in semaphore. Partly because we sing, partly because we like people. The first time you learn a new language it changes the way you think about the world just by giving you new words and structures to place those words. It’s beautiful.
No, those are simply facts. So you support that then?
Edit: this is why
All these free services somehow add up to 60 billion in profit every year. And they are expanding, they plan to spend 125-135 billion in AI data centers. They are going to build data centers that will use hundreds of gigawatts in over 10 locations. The power used by each is in the scale of the same as powering all of San Francisco with some of these as 2 to 6 times as much as San Fransisco to put it into perspective.
They are going to use about 1,000 to 2000 acres each, use 1 to 3 million gallons of water a day (one site is asking for a permit to use 23 million gallons a day).
Let me just cut contact with most my friends, my parents and grandparents. Or have to call them. But still lose our group chats. That’ll surely improve my life.
We actually held a poll in our friend group chat to switch to Signal, but the result was that everyone who was not very privacy concious didn’t want to move. Because everything else is still on Whatsapp.
It isn’t about the privacy though. It is about the direct funding of meta. You are supporting meta which means, you support AI, data centers, environmental degradation, political manipulation, and billionaires.
I can’t do it. Whatsapp is a non starter. Someone has to take a stand.
Why would anyone use WhatsApp when there’s Signal?
Because most of the world is already on WhatsApp, and changing to Signal would isolate you from most people and businesses.
So what? Don’t support fascism.
Sounds great - if I wasn’t already using Signal, that just might persuade me 😁
The only people that believe I’m worth contacting have already switched to Signal and the ones that refused to switch lost contact with me. Their loss I guess.
Must be more popular in your country, in Canada I don’t know a single person on whatsapp
It’s very big in western Europe. Here in the Netherlands everybody is on WhatsApp pretty much since it’s creation
I think the whole europe except some countries
In Germany too and I remember how upsetting it was to me from the beginning. There were third party messengers that supported established (at the time) services like ICQ or live messenger but people got onto the hot new thing because it’s so much like SMS.
I remember starting to use it because texting was pretty expensive and limited at the time. Whatsapp was free (group) texting when on WiFi and still cheaper when on cellular. If texting wasn’t so expensive at the time I really don’t think whatsapp would’ve caught on like it did. Now people are just used to it so that’s probably why it’s still big
I lived the switch in second person. My sister kept running out of SMSs to text her boyfriend, and our elder sister told her about Whatsapp and how she could have basically infinite text messages
Exactly. And, combined with the shared amount of texts/minutes (which IIRC for me was something like 100), actually calling people and wanting to text your friends you’d run out of texts very quick. WhatsApp was a godsend at the time.
This is another reason why I think the key to success is timing. Be the first to provide a service people need, and they’ll use it for a long time
Yeah they’re all on Facebook Messenger which sucks. I’ve managed to switch a few in my surroundings to Signal but I still need to keep Messenger for holdouts.
Thankfully I have managed to get everyone to switch from Messenger to Signal, atleast for talking to me haha. Two other family members being privacy oriented too really helped getting the rest of the family moved over.
Poland , and everybody around me is on WhatsApp, only a few people have Telegram. Searched a bit of saved phone numbers, none had Signal tied to them
Same thing with Twitter and mastodon I guess.
Damn shame
I could move to Signal, open up a chat with myself and chat for a while but I think it would get pretty boring pretty soon.
Because in my country historically the telecom companies are charging 0.30€ per SMS (text) and 2€ per MMS (text with photo).
So WhatsApp when they launched with their “1€/lifetime” offer on the iPhone 3GS they were the right app at the right time and became the de facto replacement for any kind of messaging. It’s insane how basically overnight they replaced msn messenger and Skype because it was so convenient (Microsoft never did a smartphone client for msn messenger, only unofficial ones. It was available on dumbphones but it used SMS from the plan to send/receive, nobody used it because you needed to be a millionaire to afford it)
SMS now in my country is only for receiving OTP codes, for the rest is WhatsApp, because still in 2026 the telecoms are still charging 2€ for each MMS sent and nobody wants to risk huge bills. This includes iMessage because if a chat suddenly goes green and you didn’t notice, it costs dozens of euro
There’s a setting in iOS to disable that from happening btw
Your telecoms are ripping you off. SMS messages ‘ride’ on the normal connection mechanism to cell phone towers. If your phone connects to a cell phone tower, it already has the space and data to attach an sms and requires nothing else. SMS are ‘free’ from the infrastructure point of view.
Maybe lobby your representatives to make charging for them illegal and you’ll get proper messaging back without selling off your data.
In Italy we don’t have the concept of “lobbying representatives”. It’s a US thing.
Lobbying doesnt always have to include €€€.
It could mean as mich as writing an email to mKe your standpoint known.
https://data.ipu.org/parliament/IT/IT-LC01/basic/contact-details/
There. 5 seconds to figure out how to email your parliament. That’s not an exaggeration.
edit: for good measure here’s your eu commission representative contact info too. https://italy.representation.ec.europa.eu/chi-siamo/commissione-europea-rappresentanza-italia_it
Well Signal would be pretty much the same as WhatsApp, it sends over internet not mms or sms
The problem is that everyone assumes you have WhatsApp.
You take clothes to the laundry? The “your order is done” notification is sent via WhatsApp
Any kind of work stuff is also on WhatsApp
You order food delivery? WhatsApp
Amazon started to send delivery notifications via WhatsApp instead of email/sms
And luckily meta is charging businesses 5 cents for messages via API or otherwise even otp codes would be via whatsapp
At least here, being reachable only on signal means being a digital exile
I thought people on here of all places would understand the impact of the network effect.
because it’s the de facto sms replacement in many european and south american countries
So?
sometimes you want to sent text messages to normal people
Because it’s unfair to assume that everyone has the necessary education or awareness of what the internet is and what online privacy means that we take for granted.
Network effects
I agree, but the other people all use it 🫠
I know we’re all saying network effects, but I don’t know what the fuck network effects means.
Network effects dude. Network effects.
It’s a simple concept.
You need at least 2 people to form a conversation.
One of them has Whatsapp, Telegram, signal, MSTeams, smoke signals and those flags that ships used to communicate.
The other only has Whatsapp.
They are going to communicate over Whatsapp.
Even if the dude with 1000 communication methods meets another dude with 1000 communication methods, they are going to use WhatsApp, because they are used to using Whatsapp with everyone, so it’s just easier to have everyone on WhatsApp.
i think those are called semaphore and they’re cool as hell. i have a set of flags around here somewhere
Of course the random dude I replied to on Lemmy owns a set of semaphore flags. What else would I expect?
oh, my wife and i are [mode of communication] geeks. she knows 3 different sign languages, i know a really rare one, we both speak just enough of like 17 different languages to order food and find the library and bathroom wherever we go. Also in semaphore. Partly because we sing, partly because we like people. The first time you learn a new language it changes the way you think about the world just by giving you new words and structures to place those words. It’s beautiful.
I don’t get to choose what app my European friends use
signal is extremely popular across europe
i’ll get right on telling them that. again.
But you get to choose what app you use. And if they continue to support fascism you have to decide if you want those kind of friends.
random european “i use whatsapp because it’s kind of the default app for a lot of things in my country”
you “fascist”
you see why i might not take you seriously?
Don’t care. Using meta is directly supporting and funding environmental degradation, AI data centers, misinformation, and yes facism.
Can you see why I am tired of being delicate and senstive about it?
what you’re being is hysterical
No, those are simply facts. So you support that then?
Edit: this is why
Let me just cut contact with most my friends, my parents and grandparents. Or have to call them. But still lose our group chats. That’ll surely improve my life.
We actually held a poll in our friend group chat to switch to Signal, but the result was that everyone who was not very privacy concious didn’t want to move. Because everything else is still on Whatsapp.
It isn’t about the privacy though. It is about the direct funding of meta. You are supporting meta which means, you support AI, data centers, environmental degradation, political manipulation, and billionaires.
I can’t do it. Whatsapp is a non starter. Someone has to take a stand.
enjoy texting yourself dude
Usually too busy to care. You enjoy funding a billionaire. Make your life worse because you can’t take a stand and are so needy for approval.
Its a little inconvenient but not bad. Gotta start somewhere.
Couldn’t be me… but some people don’t care that Meta can read their messages. Or they still don’t know but I doubt it.
Mark Zuckerberg has a term for these people…
“dumbfucks”
-Markie Zuc
You genuinely don’t know? 😬