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Comment by dbrgn | Hacker News Reader

Swiss person here. Over the last 2 weeks, dozens of my contacts (often total non-techies) have installed Threema and/or Signal. I've heard of a lot of family chatgroups moving away from WhatsApp.

WhatsApp has near-total market penetration in Switzerland. I hope this will change now, at least a bit. Until recently, you'd get strange looks if you mentioned that you don't use WhatsApp. (People sometimes assume that means you don't own a smartphone.)

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That's curious, I thought that wouldn't happen anywhere Whatsapp already had dominance.

can confirm, i too am positively surprised that most people i meet are absolutely willing to switch.

Can re-confirm: the lady who brings my family raw milk just wrote to me on Signal instead of WhatsApp without me even asking. I'm positively drowning, happily, in this tsunami!!!

Here in Uruguay (South America) WhatsApp is the norm and you make all "digital errands" (even the grocery open markets and all kind of delivery services) with it. I have been annoying my friends and family for years to switch to Signal or even Telegram with little results and my obligation to remain fixed to it. Nevertheless, after this WhatsApp/Facebook ultimatum I was astonished to watch dozens and dozens of contacts migrating, and I knew it was my moment to delete WhatsApp before they get sweetened by the delay of the deadline until May, so they begin to use the other tools, too (I don't think the majority will delete WhatsApp, but it will be a great improvement if at least the personal conversations and contacts remain out of their claws). I really didn't expected to witness such exodus: people seem to be hypnotized by social media and Pavlov's bell -the dog is not to blame-, but maybe we could think that, although it takes a lot of time to appear, a critic mass is all that we need for a change. Businesses and government should be aware of that and don't take us for granted.

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