I’m more surprised it took them this long. Thankfully there are already many decent alternative messaging apps.
this post was submitted on 16 Jun 2025
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but still nobody is going to switch. whenever i try to convince people to switch, they just defend whatsapp and I'm a whiner
Or they do switch but for like 1 day and then go back to messaging you on WhatsApp. I tried switching to signal at least a couple times, even convinced a couple groups to move, but not a single chat lasted more than a couple weeks. Eventually they all went back to WhatsApp. Every single one. It's extremely difficult to get people to care.
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I wonder whether Meta will try to lock down cross platform access now.
Currently Beeper still works everywhere and EU'S DMA (Digital Markets Act) still has WhatsApp as gate keeper which is required to interpolate with other chat apps. However "WhatsApp stories" are entirely different from chat so that means they can block all of that and this is probably how Meta will approach future WhatsApp updates - more shit to lock people in WhatsApp that isnt directly chat related because thats the only way to show people ads.
Looks like I need an alternative. An alternative for which there is still no prospect of enshitification. Which services are neither American, Chinese nor Russian? Anything from Europe?
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These ads on messaging services are out of control
so...... back to owl mail then?
Signal doesnt have ads...
Uninstalled.
Luckily I/people I interact with never used it much.
I see a lot of people saying it's time to switch to Signal, and I mean I agree in principle, it's my main messaging app, but I don't see how it can scale. It runs off of donations and the only reason it's still functioning is because the users that are there are above averagely passionate about it and willing to donate. If it became the defacto messaging app I fear that there is no way they would be capable of financing that level of traffic.
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whatsapp-free since 2023!
through its Stories-like status feature.
Eh, I've only seen it because of a misclick
Always a bit shocked to learn people still use WhatsApp.
All of my community groups are on there, including the school parents one. My choice is to not participate in the community or have Whatsapp... Or worse, Facebook.
I had to do it because many use it and I was not. If you want to communicate in certain parts of the world, this is the only way. I wish everyone would go to Signal or Telegram but everyone are not me.
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For my the best choose is XMPP... More choices, federated, simple and very secure with Omemo. You don't have the security issues like you do in WhatsApp, Telegram or Matrix (who's principal server is in economic problems matrix.org). And Signal... Well it's a long journey and can take very bad turns cause is private and has big ties with the US and big corp, still is and option and you can use the fork Molly.
Out of curiosity, do you use your xmpp app for SMS as well? I've been doing so (since the majority of my family will not leave the SMS messaging system) but its a bit lacking when it comes to groups and MMS.
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That must be the reason they’ve been putting out more ads about chats being secure between both chatters. A misdirection so they can personalize your ads to your conversations
Considering the zero byte article using anything from Meta is a FAFO moment.
Seems like I'm not in the target audience for these ads. I have absolutely zero clue what any of the things mentioned above are. I use WhatsApp to send messages.