Ask HN: How would you convince your friends and family to switch from WhatsApp? | Hacker News Reader

Ask HN: How would you convince your friends and family to switch from WhatsApp?

250 pointsmillibar198 comments

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?

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Steps, I've taken in order.

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).

I like this. Didn't realise it was possible to set up auto responders on WhatsApp via Tasker.

Thanks for this :-)

Interesting..What is Tasker? Do I need to download and configure it on the phone device?

Pretty sure nothing like this exists in ios. Apple won’t allow it so it must be an android app.

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.

Uprooting and going away with no warning, and then refusing to communicate unless it's not from an old platform sounds is a perfect recipe for being seen as awfully arrogant.

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.

To me it seems to be being somewhat intolerant. Which is a powerful way for minorities to effect change. https://medium.com/incerto/the-most-intolerant-wins-the-dict...

The crucial part of that whole post is this caveat:

>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.

> 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.

Hence I included 'Politely', I should have also included I've been doing this for ~ 2 years.

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).

How is it arrogant to dictate personal boundaries? If your not comfortable using a messaging app, you don’t have to use it.

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.

You are right. But this is how you get yourself isolated.

That's the reason why I put off quitting Facebook for years.

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.

Some people just don't have the choice. My university class group depends on Messenger, several family members and friends do too. It may be easier to incite individual people to change messaging services, but when it comes to groups or common social connections, it becomes quite difficult. I can't ask everyone in a group to stop using Messenger just because I don't want to, and neither can I ask my family to contact me solely on Telegram or Signal if other family members refuse to switch. Having everything at the same place is so convenient for most people that it's nearly impossible to provoke this kind of change.

You always have a choice. Belief that you don’t is the falsehood. If someone needs to communicate with you or you need with them, there are many ways.

The world functioned fine before Messenger.

Pick up a phone, or for that matter talk to people in person. It’s not rocket science.

> You always have a choice.

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 don't ask everyone. You try to build momentum. Get the nerds, geeks, and people that like to feel like they are special for using tech. You get these people because the privacy features. They are the easy grabs. Then one by one you form groups with those people and a few outsiders. You get these people because there's no meaningful usability difference between apps. At some point you have critical mass and getting others is fairly trivial. "We're all talking over here, just come on. It is easier." You get these people because of network effect.

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.

It isn't arrogant but it is unilateral, which can always be a problem when it involves others. It's not always avoidable but if you are the one making unilateral changes you may end up bearing costs also, or needed to do extra to facilitate the change.

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.

Yes... just like I would hope others would be supportive of my choice of communication. No matter what, it’s definitely not arrogant.

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.

The "bar-like" scenario here is that they retain a whatsapp group chat that you are no longer in, and so you miss some stuff.

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.

> but nobody is at fault.

Facebook is.

Do we need a webbrowser base proxy for WhatsApp to Signal (and other chat platforms)?

Run it on webbrowser at home / cloud instance and proxy msgs but drop all FB trackings?

Any pro/con to this approach?

If you are ready to put in a separate instance to handle WhatsApp, then a separate mobile with Tasker to forward the WhatsApp message to email or other client is the easiest thing to do.

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.

Back in the day Signal (i think it was named differently too back then) could encrypt SMS.

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.

I would be careful with 4a.

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.

How come? SMS client functions independent of the GSM stack, I haven't faced any issues due to Signal being the SMS client for several years now.

As I switched back to the default SMS app, "magically" all the 2FA tokens are delivered in less than 10 seconds.

I have stopped communicating with friends and family who try communicating via insecure apps. I send a response saying I will only read Signal or similar messages from them.

Some think this is a hardline, but my security is important to me, and true friends and family need to respect that.

It's kind of like how my sister is vegan, so when she comes over for dinner, I cook vegan dishes for her. I respect and accommodate her lifestyle choices, and she does likewise by communicating with me via my preferred medium. Conversely, for example, I no longer talk to one cousin because he ignored requests to use a safe messaging app, and that is OK too.

I did the same, I think I just stopped receiving messages!

This works fine until a point in life at which communicating with others and answering to others, meaning you are available for them, whatever the app, is more important than anything else.

Not meaning to not boycott such apps with those you can, just giving another pov from elsewhere in life. Most of my phones are rooted and without google for years, but sometimes...

Life is short, human communication is deep and fragile. Tools do change, renew and improve, while as living humans we get older ;)

> meaning you are available for them

I agree. That's why I'm available on 3 platforms that cover everyone I'm in contact with (phone, sms and email) and I can be choosy about any others I'm on.

Does your family's threat model actually include targeted surveillance by US intelligence agencies? There are many reasons to switch off whatsapp, but I don't believe it should be considered insecure unless you are a journalist, activist, or citizen of a country with severe oppressive regimes: China, Iran, Saudi Arabia, Turkey, Russia, etc.

If your threat model DOES include US intelligence agencies, you shouldn't use almost any mainstream browser, most protocols (including https://), social media (including HN), etc...

Add India to that list of regimes.

I don’t think so.

Comparing India to Saudi Arabia and Iran? Lol.

> but I don't believe it should be considered insecure unless you are a journalist, activist, or citizen of a country with severe oppressive regimes: China, Iran, Saudi Arabia, Turkey, Russia, etc.

If only those people will try to have privacy, it will be much easier to target them. Everyone should have privacy to protect them. It’s sort of like freedom of speech is necessary not just for journalists, but for everyone, even if you have nothing to say.

This is just a more convoluted "nothing to hide" argument.

> If your threat model DOES include US intelligence agencies, you shouldn't use almost any mainstream browser, most protocols (including https://), social media (including HN), etc...

No, you can simply use Qubes OS and use whatever software you want in disposable VMs and perhaps have several identities. It works for me (or so I hope).

>surveillance by US intelligence agencies? There are many reasons to switch off whatsapp, but I don't believe it should be considered insecure

Well, I consider getting targetted facebook ads based on the content of my whatsapp messages to be insecure.

Being secure also means secure against the company that created/provides the software also.

How secure something is doesn't change based on the threat model.

My parents are not too tech savvy to install and use another messenger app. I installed watsapp on their phones when i was in India last time. Even if i can go there and install signal for them, I wont to do that.

This is ok tradeoff for me. Its fine. Being able to video chat with my parents trumps everything else.

I do this as well. I never used WhatsApp and I'm not inclined to use it.

Most people who really want to communicate with me via an IM service acquiesce and install Signal.

I think people overstate how difficult it is to get somebody to install Signal. I've got a 100% conversion rate amongst my extended family.

In the old days people used to write letters and send them in the post. Imagine that. Anyone could hack into a letter, and they were rarely even ever encrypted. Scary.

But then again things were better back then. Actually I’d like to go back there now.

Yeah but no one kept tabs on who all you were sending letters to and who all were sending letters to you, and what you were writing in those letters and so on so that they could show ads to you...

You’d think.

Don't think I woulda thought about it this way, pretty interesting perspective

I’ve changed my profile photo to a photo of Signal next to its logo along with a short message asking people to contact me on that medium. That way Facebook gets dirty data (an incorrect profile photo). I recon that people pay more attention to profile photos than status messages too.

Then to win whatever argument they fire at me I reply with something like “Thanks for your insight Dave but I’m not asking you to quit WhatsApp. I’m just asking you to use Signal for our group chat and to keep in touch with me. You are welcome to use WhatsApp to keep in touch with others. I’ve done my research, I know what they are doing at a technical level and have decided to stop using WhatsApp.” A statement like this opens up very few avenues for argument because you are not directly accusing the other person of being ignorant. So they will not usually feel the need to defend themselves. You are merely informing them of your preference. They may feel the need to remind you of their argument and the best way to reply to that is to paraphrase their argument accurately even if you don’t agree with it. I know it’s mean and manipulative but arguing about privacy is just a waste of time IMO. Some people get it, some just don’t. Leave it be.

Nobody will give a damn about the privacy changes. You've got to convince them based on other features like stickers, video playback and other "exciting" things.

Yeah, the real selling points seems to be around the features. But i don't think people care enough about all that if majority of their friends are on WhatsApp.

Even if you do give a damn, it's realistically impossible to shift your entire immediate network to something outside of WhatsApp to a dual communications stack. This is why IPv6 adoption has been so slow - IPv4 "works already".

There's a reason the first line in every iOS changelog is all the new supported emojis.

I had 3 people giving quite some damn about it today at work. Got them all to switch to Signal :)

And it seems like may others do too: https://twitter.com/signalapp/status/1347240006444675072

Or just the fact that is extremely much better in all ux departments:

- 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.

I think you get the nerds with privacy. But you get others with the network effect. So you get the nerds first and that helps build your initial base that helps expand your network. Get your DnD or boardgame group to use Signal. Then get other peers, then get family. The problem of converting people is the network effect. Similarly the solution to converting people is creating a network.

In my country (Mexico) it'll be pretty much impossible, everyone uses WA/Messenger (both FB owned) many businesses/stores have support via those channels (and that support is almost always faster than calling them) Also my appartament building has a WA group where people notifies important stuff. And to add insult to perjury most data plans include WA/Messenger/FB free. I tried years ago (2014-15) to stay telegram only and eventually I had to give up.

edit: typo

yeah, sounds like an impossible situation to get our of over there. also sounds like facebook have essentially monopolised messaging services in Mexio. I also read something similar about Brazil too.

Yes, someone from Brazil said exactly this (that WhatsApp is a utility, to use their words).

I am French and we do use WA a lot but only on a social level, not (yet?) as a way to contact businesses.

Same in Italy. It's really crazy how much control FB has in many different countries.

It's really amazing to me that the killer features of WhatsApp - no spam and no usernames/passwords to keep track of or get hacked - were made possible by simple SMS authentication. The whole lack of spam via SMS authentication itself and using the phone system as a proxy for real humans is something that sounds so simple now yet eluded people for the longest time. Maybe it was because SMS messages used to cost something for many years, at least in the US.

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.

Could be worse like in Myanmar where Facebook IS this internet.

I just did it with my family, who use FB and know at a high level why FB is bad. Here's what I said:

"WhatsApp is now sucking all of your convos (including baby photos, etc.) into Facebook with their recent policy update. We're switching our family group chat to Signal".

My mom, who's nearly 70 did it almost instantaneously.

EDIT: My parents began to understand why FB is bad by reading books and watching documentaries. Those spooked them about how harmful it is for kids. So the "think of the children" might be a good motivator too.

I did something similar and already convinced my immediate family and 5 other people to install Signal. Let's see how this goes.

That may be a good motivator, but it's not true. The content of the messages are not going to be "sucked up into Facebook." The content of Whatsapp messages aren't accessible by Facebook.

> The content of Whatsapp messages aren't accessible by Facebook.

You don't know that. Sure the messages are (claimed to be) e2e encrypted. But key exchange goes through Whatsapp (Facebook) servers. So they could give themselves access easily enough if they wanted to.

> But key exchange goes through Whatsapp (Facebook) servers. So they could give themselves access easily enough if they wanted to.

The key exchange going through their servers isn't so much the problem; public-key cryptography solves this. The problem is that the clients are closed source.

"The content of Whatsapp messages aren't accessible by Facebook."

How do we know for sure?

It is closed source. We have to rely on reverse engeneering or whistleblowers inside FB.

> That may be a good motivator, but it's not true.

Technically, maybe not, but do the semantics really matter here?

so how does the client show you messages? does your phone's display decrypt your messages?

those messages are absolutely going to be sucked by facebook in some manner - either exactly like messenger (i.e. full mitm) or at least some keywords, object identification in photos/movies, etc.

All media content damn well is sucked by FB. Read the TOS.

I started using Telegram a couple of years ago to prevent my "online status" on Whatsapp being visible to everyone.

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.

>I started using Telegram a couple of years ago to prevent my "online status" on Whatsapp being visible to everyone.

FWIW you can just disable this in the settings.

No you can't, you can only hide your last seen status.

You can't hide when you're actually online.

I stopped worrying about convincing. I joined other platforms to help others see I'm available (signal and telegram). more and more people are joining them too, so its good that you are there so others see you as well.

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.

Good point. The inconvenience to other is probably what i was worried most about but that is probably more their problem then mine

Simple: You wont get computer help from me anymore if you try message me on WhatsApp. Install the messenger i tell you to install.

Coercion? How crude and unlikely.

Everyone 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.

still wizardry for a lot of the elder generation I think

Computer maintenance doesn't exist for most people I know. If something gets slow or stops working, they ask a friendly wizard to magically fix it, or they buy a new/different thing, or they do without. It's not that people have learned to admin their own devices, most devices just don't have proper administration.

Hahahaha, brutal!

You convince them in the same way you'd convince them of anything they're unsure of or against.

Give them a reason that they care enough about and make it painless enough and they may follow. Listen to their concerns and try to find ways to address them or to find workable compromises. Remember that you are placing an additional imposition on them. Asking them to switch services for you is asking them a favour. Each person (or social group) has their own motivations, perspective and other attributes which means that the tactic to win over each person (/group) should be different.

I'd caution against a hardline stance, I've lost friends (acquaintances?) who went down that path to what I'd consider a paranoid extent (going sms or email or "obscure" services only). It just became too hard to keep them in the loop when organising eg group events, so they started to get excluded. Their behavior just didn't make sense considering their (presumably low) threat profile, and they'd made the barriers to contact too high in comparison to the social value they brought.

In my case, these people were socially inept (selfish?) and felt that how we communicated was solely their choice, which is kind of true in a way, but the other person has the choice of whether they continue to try to engage.

I'm not saying that you need to entirely embrace these services as a necessary evil, but it's not a binary choice either. You can be easier to reach on the services that you want to use, and only rarely catch up on whatsapp from a sandbox machine. You can encourage people and help set them up on the services that you want to use. You can advocate for privacy awareness within the groups you're in. You can refuse to share more secret things like passwords on the less privacy-aware networks. All of these things will contribute to avoiding less privacy-oriented services.

It's a transition, and a social process.

My family hates WhatsApp as there are no Telegram stickers there. So it was easy.

So I guess, I'd show them animated stickers. WhatsApp feels archaic tbh

But why Telegram over Signal?

signal is a messaging app. telegram is a damn nice platform for a lot of stuff, messaging included :)

Privacy excluded.

But why another walled garden and not distributed Matrix?

Yeah, i thought WhatsApp was the shit until I started using Telegram

>My family hates WhatsApp

Wish I had your family. Telegram's new Group voice chat feature (Push to talk) might push them over though.

WhatsApp seems to have animated stickers, though. I haven't used them, but they're popular.

For me it was very straightforward.

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.

I can't speak directly to whatsapp but I got more than a few family members and friends to install Signal by saying "I use Signal for my messaging, you can still reach me by txt but I can't promise I'll respond in a reasonable timeframe as I may not see the message.”

Granted there was a white lie in there since I use Signal as my default app for sms too. Nonetheless it did the trick.

Family is easy. They have a necessity to keep in touch with me, so they'll use whatever I tell them to.

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 think I started with my wife to test it out myself.

Then the younger ones. Started discussing it with my siblings, pointed out a number of ways in which Telegram was better, asked them if they really wanted to play into the hands of Facebook (this was before WhatsApp got E2E-encryption I think).

Same with my wifes family. With them they suddenly just jumped at it and switched one afternoon.

My family however took over a year I think until suddenly my until then deeply sceptical sister told everyone that she'd leave WhatsApp and those who wanted to be along should join her on Telegram. And I said nothing and was just happy.

Before and in between those two events everyone else changed:

- church groups

- sports groups

- all kinds of groups for planning and organizating all kinds of stuff

Some needed a little nudge, others went all by themselves.

At some point Telegram became so much better as to be contagious: I heard a number of people not wanting to leave WhatsApp but after they started to use Telegram nobody ever wanted to go back.

Long story short:

Start with close friends. Start it as an experiment. Start with the young ones, let them nag their parents and coaches and everyone to change :-)

(For those who don't know what I'm talking about: Telegram is extremely much more user friendly and powerful compared to WhatsApp in the same way WhatsApp was extremely much more user friendly and powerful than sms.)

(serious) can someone explain to me how widespread WhatsApp is in your social circles? I'm unaware of a single individual that I know using WhatsApp and I only used it for a brief window of a few weeks when I (in Indiana) and a guy in Australia attempted to do a podcast together over a decade ago.

Is this big with folks outside of the United States? Is it something that is largely used in the tech community? My friends and I just use run of the mill SMS/MMS with whatever app, or use Facebook Messenger even when we have each other's numbers, or will indiscriminately switch between the two.

My wife's family almost exclusively uses Marco Polo and iMessage.

It heavily depends on the country people are in. In the USA and Canada, Facebook Messenger is by far the most popular, but globally, WhatsApp has the most active users.

See: https://www.messengerpeople.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/07/s...

https://www.messengerpeople.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/07/s...

Too bad SMS / MMS weren't included on that map. That's by far the most popular messaging option in my general area (where data is expensive, and unlimited texts common).

I'd just stop using it. I don't feel compelled to use something to be part of a group, but that's just me.

Same. I just said I was no longer using WhatsApp. Sure, it puts the pressure on them to switch, and makes you the bad guy for a while, but it works.

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.

Can’t they just say the same right back to you?

I agree with your position. It’s just worth noting that you do indeed have to be willing to walk, potentially permanently.

It's very interesting that this is the 4th Anti-Whatsapp post on HN in the past 2 days.

These posts seem to get a higher than normal amount of engagement also. weird.

I don't find it weird. It just shows how popular the app is and how dependent we became on it.

Changing of goalposts. Bait and switch. I’d love to have an alternative.

Facebook just announced a new TOS for Watsapp that a lot of people here don't like.

There's nothing even unexpected going on with HN.

With 2 billion+ users worldwide, it's not surprising that Facebook's move has caused which a stir

You can’t. You won’t. Don’t stress out trying. Minimise what you send. Use alternatives where you can. You won’t persuade 60 parents in your kids classes what’s app group to switch over. They’ll all have FB already and frankly don’t care, won’t care and feel the privacy sacrifice is worth the utility. Accept that some people are happy being the product. Like some people vote Red and other vote Blue.

I went cold turkey.

I live abroad, in one of my trips back home, I installed Telegram in my parent's phones and showed them how they can call me (mom started spamming me with stickers immediately), asked each friend that I met in person to do the same. They all did except one friend. I posted on facebook that i'm quitting it and left my contact info. Some got in touch, many didn't. Life went on.

I guess that many of those who didn't get in touch don't check FB anymore.

They were active. Some probably didn’t care to install something else and some probably never seen the status (including close friends) because it either never showed up in their feed or because i deleted my account the next day (which was probably a bad idea)

If you're good enough friends with someone, and asshole enough, you can simply say that X is the only app you use, and they'll follow.

A single intolerant person can have a huge influence on a group of people that doesn't care to much. Of course, this will earn you a lot of eyerolls, and some friends may decide that not talking to you is easier.

While I don't use nor know anyone on WhatsApp, I have a few friends that use FB Messenger (which I don't have on my phone) for most of their communication.

Sometimes I get an email along the lines of "X sent you a message on FB Messenger". When I do, I'll jump on the computer, chat a bit, and then remind them "I don't use FB on my phone, so if I'm not near a computer reach me @ XXX-XXX-XXXX or name@example.com". Everyone I'm in contact with has at least a phone number or email address.

Now, I'm 35 so not really in the age group that has 10 group chats, each with 10 people, that have all been going on for many years. You might be in a demographic where that happens more often.

Even so, consider this even though it's not exactly what WhatsApp gives you; it might be useful/healthy to reject the FOMO and half-disconnect (still keeping yourself available, but on fewer services).

Reading other threads, I'm realizing that video chat is a bit of a blind spot for me as I don't use it socially.

If you do though, maybe that group is small enough to move the people you really care about videoing with.

My phone is in DnD mode for several years now, so messaging is the best option to connect to me. When exchanging contacts I always mention that best reaction time is via Telegram because I have it on the phone and on all PCs. I only checking WhatsApp when I am on the phone.

This strategy worked super well for me:

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 switched a few years ago from WhatsApp to Signal. I was kind of the one and only person in my Signal contacts then. Most people didn't understand why I left WhatsApp and convincing didn't really help. By the time more and more people started to use Signal too so today I miss no one. I think the topic behind it is way deeper than the technical stuff or which app to use. Use what you are confident of. Important people will use whatever is available to stay in touch with you, because communication is not about technology but about relationship. Thats why there is no point in convincing people to switch the app. That happens by time, or not.

I'm manager of about 100 independent people in Germany, where almost nobody uses Facebook. Maybe 5 of them.

We are currently organizing via 5-7 WhatsApp groups, and in a couple of months we need to switch, by my estimate. This is only India, but the rest will follow, and the change is not acceptable at all.

So I'm preparing now a slow switch to Signal, which seems to be most acceptable here. So far nobody took the initial bite, so I'll have to prepare a longer massmail. Telegram not, this stores all messages centrally.

It will be longer process, esp. since our groups are Corona affected and we are doing nothing. But in about 2 months I hope to have everybody switched over.

You really should have a look into Matrix/Element, esp when you are a Business.

Oops, as it turns out I just got the termination message right now. Agree until mid February or not. Of course not.

Convince them that "everyone" is using your new alternative. Nobody cares about privacy, security, etc. 80% of people just want to fit in with the rest of the 80%. If they think that their tribe is moving from WhatsApp to CoolNewDoodad then they'll switch.

Trust me, I've explained to people how Zoom has had a history of poor security and ties to the CCP and they basically shrug their shoulders. They don't care about that. What they do care about is being cool and belonging. It's the same reason all the old people who used to scoff at social media are now on Facebook.

Well. I taught my mom to use wats app just a year back. If I just uninstall and say they changed color she will be fine. There is just one group called "My Family". My sister and dad can easily migrate. Office and friends are easy as well. Now that everybody has turned on that auto delete. Only very old messages are those and who goes back and reads those.

If whatapp provides api to track people in the group. I will think on staying. Ofcourse with user content. Last seen in this location every 15mins. Old dad problem blackmailing one day I might get lost...

I started switching people over 3-4 years ago. My strategy was to wait for people to need help with their phone, then casually install it there (with their permission) after I had fixed whatever was wrong with it. I've found that people are more receptive to a 'new thing' after they get a little dopamine hit from something getting 'fixed'.

Obviously, that's a little different now with distancing & public safety measures...

Tell them Elon Musk says use Signal. Adds the 'cool' factor that is very important in these kind of negotiations. People like the SpaceX guy. Has already worked for me, although I don't know how long it will last.

https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/1347165127036977153

I don't know why everyone is so adamant that it's never going to happen, it seems an incredibly defeatist mindset to take. The best way I can think of is to make people want to speak to you and then only be available on Signal.

If installing a messaging application is an insurmountable barrier to their desire to communicate with you, I'm not sure how solid a relationship there was in the first place.

I didn't try to convince anyone. I deleted it and people started to reach out on Signal, Telegram and Threema. A friend of mine did the same 4 years earlier and it worked out.

This probably doesn't just work for everyone, in every country. But look, people still use phones and these things actually have a phone feature. You might not be as cut off without Whatsapp as you think.

The whole countries (Central, Latin americas) depends on these and they can't care less about privacy.

It's a non starter in certain regions.

Do what they did to move people away from email: Spam them ;)

worst case you manage to sell a few cases of enlargement pills ¯\_ (ツ)_/¯

Be an endlessly fascinating and brilliant friend/relative but refuse to communicate with them via WhatsApp.

What about using Facebook Messenger? I switched to that and have to say I’ve been quite pleased with it.

I already did. Simply text and continue the conversation on text messages. Now everyone reaches back to me over text. I messaged everyone for 2 weeks that I am deleting WhatsApp account so there is plenty of time for them to absorb.

Now that Signal offers group voice and video chats, it can replace booth WhatsApp and Skype. As I am my familys tech guy I think I can manage to move our groups to Signal within the next few weeks.

Pretty much impossible here in India. Whatsapp is so popular here. They are responsible for almost all personal messages sent, and play a huge role for small businesses here.

Business and personal are slightly different use cases, for personal you can simply do the migration suggestions provided above.

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.

what I've found to be super helpful when communicating the importance of privacy to my less tech savvy friends and family, is communicating that I don't want to participate in services that ask me to sacrifice the details of my inner life, especially to companies that I feel are disrupting the health of society, and that is what I feel they are asking me to do when they prefer to use platforms supported by surveillance models, like Facebook and Google.

I wouldn't have to, no one I know uses WhatsApp. My friends and family all communicate with me via calls and text messages. I don't have facebook, twitter, etc.

By refusing to use it.

There's no convincing because I only know a few people who use WhatsApp. Most everyone uses iMessage or regular SMS, or if not then Facebook Messenger.

My cousin switched to Signal last year and she just sent a message saying she was switching to Signal. It's the only reason I installed Signal.

If they care about you, they'll create an account in Telegram/Signal/whatever just to be in contact with you.

i don't know how to do it but my parents and a good friend switched to conversations[0] because this is what I prefer.

I guess people are willing to switch if they care about you a lot. in other words, most won't.

[0] https://conversations.im/

1. Make myself important

2. Remove myself from Whatsapp

3. People will have incentive to reach me by using whatever app I am using

I am still stuck at 1.

Nobody in my friends or family uses WhatsApp already, so it's pretty trivial for me I guess.

Could a competitor with a subscription based business model sneak in and grab market share?

there are plenty trying.

I think most would be targeted at business professionals that need a certain level of privacy. I don't see how a service like that could win over enough domestic users to make a dent in the market while whilst the are so many free alternatives with great features

I very much doubt a subscription based messaging app would take a big enough share to affect Facebook.

Not to say that business can't successful make money. There must be people out there willing to pay for privacy.

Who controls pictures of the grandkids, controls the eyeballs.

No. In my country (Mexico) that's not practical.

I migrated my family to Signal when we had our first kid. We live pretty far from our home town and see family ~2 times a year.

I created a signal group. Invited the entire family to it. Used it to keep everyone up-to-date during delivery. Now that group is where I share photos/videos of my kids growing up, and where we organize our trips back home. Nobody has complained.

tl;dr: procreate and use your children to align incentives.

I value contacts with my family and friends more than protecting what's left of my privacy from Facebook.

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.

This is the pragmatic approach to the issue. Switching from a ubiquitous communications platform to something that practically nobody uses (relative to WhatsApp's active user numbers) carries a high cost in Weirdness Points[0], and those are only very slowly renewable unless you want to be seen as "the rebel of the family".

[0] https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/wkuDgmpxwbu2M2k3w/you-have-a...

> This is the pragmatic approach to the issue

There is nothing pragmatic in helping Facebook dominate our lives entirely.

As with anything else, pragmatism is heavily dependent on context.

Perhaps for that user, this is the pragmatic approach.

To me, it's the opposite.

By stopping to use it.

TL;DR

1. Tell people "use other apps".

2. <wait>

3. Post on HN : "I'm lonely. My social life went to crap and I feel my mental health is collapsing"

I tried asking my parents to switch to Signal, but it did not fly. They are in their 70s and are used to WhatsApp. They don't care about privacy.

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."

Haha, this is pretty much what i expect to hear from my mum who took year to figure out how to use WhatsApp

My strategy is: tell them I will be leaving WhatsApp, and they can reach me on Signal.

If they don’t care enough to install a free app to talk to me, good riddance.

This is a good strategy for burning bridges that don't have to be burnt (and I mean between friends, not just random acquaintances who you don't care for). It's better to gradually shift person-by-person so that you don't lose relationships.

I have been through this 'transition' about 4 times now on other applications. "oh I do not use that one anymore I use XYZ" when it comes up and offer to help them setup a new account. I then usually just fire it up for them for a small conversation right then but then turn it off. There is nothing wrong with having more than one application. Hell most of our phones are already running dozens of them. But at a point you grow weary of them. I used to use aggregator applications like trillian. But they always seem to be chasing the breakage or not able to interpolate at all.

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.

Why? They can still reach me for free and with all convenience one could hope for.

Good luck saying good riddance to your immediate family.

If you lose contact with your immediate family because of a messaging platform it's not really a great relationship that needs to be maintained anyway. You can visit, call, text, or email too.

It's actually setting a healthy boundary. If they don't want to reach me on Signal, that's fine. There are other ways to talk to each other rather than text messaging.

I’m hoping your family likes you more than they hate installing and setting up a dead simple to use and free app like Signal...

In response my sister just sms' me.

Exactly. No one I know cares about privacy nor another app for other reasons. Whatever is popular they will use. Family members are already used to Whatsapp. It is nearly impossible to switch them to something else now.

Funnily enough my story is the opposite - I don't care very much but my Dad (72) just announced to my brother and I that he's moving to Signal and we need to follow him over there...

Outlier here. Never used Facebook. Never used WhatsApp. Family communicates with me by email, or SMS.

Pretty much the same....I had facebook in the early to late 2000's but deleted it over a decade ago now...never once missed it. I had WhatsApp on my company computer because it was an outside parties preferred way of communicating with us, but I don't count that as it was a business only thing, never used it for personal use and the company now communicates with us via slack (thank goodness).

Telegram has nice stickers.

You don't, because this is an asinine reason to switch. Facebook acquired WhatsApp 6 years ago.

The best time to quit was six years ago. The second best time is now.

Yeah and you should self-host your email too

I don't use any messenger apps, but I work in AdTech. Just curious, what exactly are you trying to hide? What kind of information is being shared by WhatsApp?

Not really trying to hide as such, but I did become a father recently and my wife and I use WhatsApp to communicate with health professionals and sometime send sensitive images of our son what we would not want views by anyone else.

Do you use the default messenger apps that come pre-installed or just non what-so-ever? And Why?

On a daily basis, when it comes to messaging, I simply text my friends.

Are you serious here? Working in AdTech - which does (or at least should) translate to "working on undoing the good which used to be the public internet" - you most certainly realise, and possibly salivate over the breadth and width of Facebook's means to profile 'net users, whether those be actual Facebook (as in "Facebook the site, Instagram, WhatsApp and whatever other company they reeled in") users or otherwise. For those who want to keep their exposure to AdTech as small as possible it is adamant not to feed the beast if this can be avoided. That means not using any of their products and blocking access to any of their properties. It means not believing a word of what Facebook says about keeping WhatsApp apart from their other properties as they have shown time and again that they can not be trusted - something which is endemic when it concerns anything related to AdTech, probably because the lure of all that user data just waiting to be exploited is simply too big.

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.

I am 100% serious. I get the "ad-free public internet" nostalgia, but ads is an inevitable component of our economy. The good old internet was good only because it was something new and unknown. The very first newspapers did not have ads. 100 years after, Benjamin Franklin pulled the trigger and started a column for advertisers to promote their products and services. Ads are valuable. They can make a huge difference for your business. Ads are not going anywhere in the near future.

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.

Ads and personalized ads are two very different things. Duckduckgo works fine on the former.

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.

> 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

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.

(facepalm)

> 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'm not deciding anything for you. I can only recommend. You either share your data or you don't. It's your decision.

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.

Don't you think you should blame the shop owner and not the ad company in this case? At the end of the day, it's the shop owner who came to us, not we came to them.

I don't believe it...it's the "weapons don't kill people" defence...

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.

Reputable AdTech firms is comparable to responsible tobacco firms, both are peddling unhealthy goods, both try to whitewash their image by claiming to be above the fray. Also, 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 - no, just no. First of all I can only assume that doctors are more likely to read publications which are related to their profession and as such can be targeted for advertising there, just like fishermen will read publications related to fishing and as such can be targeted. Ads on Javascript IDEs belong in publications related to programming, ads about vaping belong in the dustbin or, if you insist, in lifestyle magazines and similar vacuous outlets. There is no need to follow those doctors around to pester them with ads related to their profession when they turn to the daily news, just like those fishermen don't need to be targeted when they happen to open an unrelated site. In short, there is no need for active profiling. Since AdTech insists on doing this anyway it is in users best interest to a) make sure there is as little data to be gathered by AdTech firms and b) to make sure they don't see any ad, period. You - as in the AdTech industry - made your bed, now lie in it.

> In short, there is no need for active profiling.

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.

> Active profiling is needed so that tobacco ads do not show up in your kids' newsfeed.

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.

> Active profiling is needed so that tobacco ads do not show up in your kids' newsfeed.

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.

> Just curious, what exactly are you trying to hide?

That's none of your business.

> what exactly are you trying to hide

The contents of my messages, photos of my kids, who I talk to and when, my location. Is that enough for you?

Do they explicitly say it? If yes, how do they use this information? Any phone uploads your photos to a cloud these days.

> how do they use this information?

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=...

So, I took a look. You said that they share the contests of your messages. Looks like that's simply wrong.

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.

They don't have to store anything to make a good use of that data.

"The information we share with the other Facebook Companies. includes your account registration information (such as your phone number), transaction data, service-related information, information on how you interact with others (including businesses) when using our Services, mobile device information, your IP address, and may include other information identified in the Privacy Policy section entitled ‘Information We Collect’ or obtained upon notice to you or based on your consent."

All in all, nothing special. Nobody shares your messages/media.

The very block of text you quoted is terrifying for me. Why am I getting the impression there is no convincing you about how bad for our privacy this is?

Because half of what you said is wrong. Your original message states that WhatsApp shares contents of your messages, your location, photos of your kids, etc with third-parties.

> 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.

> what exactly are you trying to hide?

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25416123

Reply on news.ycombinator.com