That’s bullying talk. It’s the same everywhere… and what matters is the “almost” part. If people need you, they find a way. It might be SMS, it might be email, you might be left out from groupchat but you can still be reached.
In Latin America most public services, banks ans bussines uses whatspps as their main support line.
To give you an example, if you have no water in your house you need to report on wp. No other way.
And this is the standard for a lot of services, wp is the ONLY way to ask for support.
Also, if you are a freelancer or have a bussiness, your clients expect you to have whatsapp, 90% of inquiries and sales goes through wp.
It’s a nightmare, i really want to get rid of meta services but it is impossible for my case.
I have decided to decouple what i can, and use different phones for meta services, but i suspect that they still correlate and collect data. (Based on location, wifi, mac of iot, browsing etc)
Anyways, i ask people to be aware that for some of us, our situations makes impossible to remove some of the meta, microsoft or google services.
My aproach for now is to only use the minimum neccesary, i still search for ways to gradually switch out what i can.
Whatever i can’t rid off, i have another phone for it, how effecrive this is idk but for now is the best solution i found.
Thanks for the clarification, i read you wrong, and you are completely right.
Whats worse is that even if you are a bit savvy or informed is hard to fully get away from them.
But anyways, even if i cant escape them i will try to give the minimum data possible.
even if i cant escape them i will try to give the minimum data possible.
Yep, one has to be pragmatic. We all wish our behavior was perfect at all time but sadly we must compromise and come to term with it.
Accepting that is important. I believe what can also help is to :
avoid is possible
if not, not provide unnecessary information (maybe the real name is NOT actually needed)
delete what can be deleted locally (short history) and remotely (e.g. GDPR request)
to data takeout regularly to be ready to move away any time
isolate the problematic app (container, other device, emulator, etc)
… and finally, most importantly, minimize the actual negative impact. For example if one does provide data to Google or Meta then at least while blocking ads then their actual business model, namely selling your profile to advertising company, is lost.
To give you an example, if you have no water in your house you need to report on wp. No other way. And this is the standard for a lot of services, wp is the ONLY way to ask for support.
whatsapp requires phone numbers. surely they can be called
It’s a nightmare, i really want to get rid of meta services but it is impossible for my case.
if you have tech skills, try running a matrix bridge for whatsapp for yourself. take it slowly if you need it, you are not in a hurry. your own server, federation off. keep using whatsapp as you did before, and check for a month or two if the bridge is running stable. subscribe to notifications for github releases of the bridge to know if there’s an important update.
you won’t be able to leave whatsapp behind, but at least you’ll be able to get rid of its apps that do whatever that’s not for your benefit
whatsapp requires phone numbers. surely they can be called
Sadly the phone number is only for messages, in most cases it’s automated with a bot giving you options.
if you have tech skills, try running a matrix bridge
I didn’t know about matrix bridges. To be honest i’m not familiar with matrix but i have been learning about networking and self host on the side. I could make it part of the project.
Thanks for the suggestions! I should interact more with the community, i have been receiving lots of good feedback recently, i was always a lurker on reddit.
Here in Brazil whatsapp is almost mandatory, if you dont have it you cant talk to anyone
Sounds really sad to be so dependent on it…
That’s bullying talk. It’s the same everywhere… and what matters is the “almost” part. If people need you, they find a way. It might be SMS, it might be email, you might be left out from groupchat but you can still be reached.
In Latin America most public services, banks ans bussines uses whatspps as their main support line.
To give you an example, if you have no water in your house you need to report on wp. No other way. And this is the standard for a lot of services, wp is the ONLY way to ask for support.
Also, if you are a freelancer or have a bussiness, your clients expect you to have whatsapp, 90% of inquiries and sales goes through wp.
It’s a nightmare, i really want to get rid of meta services but it is impossible for my case.
I have decided to decouple what i can, and use different phones for meta services, but i suspect that they still correlate and collect data. (Based on location, wifi, mac of iot, browsing etc)
Anyways, i ask people to be aware that for some of us, our situations makes impossible to remove some of the meta, microsoft or google services.
My aproach for now is to only use the minimum neccesary, i still search for ways to gradually switch out what i can.
Whatever i can’t rid off, i have another phone for it, how effecrive this is idk but for now is the best solution i found.
Right, I’m not saying it’s necessarily bullying by people, it can be precisely by those companies. They make themselves as hard as possible to ignore.
Thanks for the clarification, i read you wrong, and you are completely right. Whats worse is that even if you are a bit savvy or informed is hard to fully get away from them. But anyways, even if i cant escape them i will try to give the minimum data possible.
Yep, one has to be pragmatic. We all wish our behavior was perfect at all time but sadly we must compromise and come to term with it.
Accepting that is important. I believe what can also help is to :
… and finally, most importantly, minimize the actual negative impact. For example if one does provide data to Google or Meta then at least while blocking ads then their actual business model, namely selling your profile to advertising company, is lost.
whatsapp requires phone numbers. surely they can be called
if you have tech skills, try running a matrix bridge for whatsapp for yourself. take it slowly if you need it, you are not in a hurry. your own server, federation off. keep using whatsapp as you did before, and check for a month or two if the bridge is running stable. subscribe to notifications for github releases of the bridge to know if there’s an important update.
you won’t be able to leave whatsapp behind, but at least you’ll be able to get rid of its apps that do whatever that’s not for your benefit
Sadly the phone number is only for messages, in most cases it’s automated with a bot giving you options.
I didn’t know about matrix bridges. To be honest i’m not familiar with matrix but i have been learning about networking and self host on the side. I could make it part of the project.
Thanks for the suggestions! I should interact more with the community, i have been receiving lots of good feedback recently, i was always a lurker on reddit.
Yeah, if they need you, but maintaining friendships is hard enough work if one doesn’t actively exclude oneself.
A lot of people in nations that rely on WhatsApp have data-only plans because they’re cheaper.
Or worst because Meta itself make such plans cheaper, or even free (as they did in e.g. Brazil), when data is used on their platforms.