Just stop using Meta products. It's really not as hard as it seems. Nobody needs FB to communicate with friends and family. Send texts or emails or use your phone.
If someone is prepared to not be my friend because they only want to communicate via a Meta app, then I don’t see why I’d want them as a friend.
The good thing is that it isn't everywhere: Taiwan, Japan, and China usually have apps like Line or WeChat as options. In Europe there's more usage of WhatsApp (which is still Meta owned but also not social media). But in the US (and countries in the Americas), I still see a heavy reliance on Instagram and Facebook.
You can use a throwaway account for that or other things such as FB Marketplace. It's not ideal because it generates traffic on FB, but it's better than handing over all your private communications to Zuckerberg.
During local elections over here (Netherlands), it was impossible to find any info from local parties outside of Facebook. Those parties are also the biggest, usually. I ended up voting for the one party that had a website with their plans for that exact reason.
1/ meta products trigger organic conversations. People post on Instagram and Facebook that they’re traveling and I will reach out to them if I’m close by. People don’t use Signal that way.
2/ the Facebook groups are very useful for local communities. As a traveler, I reach out to Expat groups for feedback.
I'm not making any serious money off the old stuff I sell, but the alternative to selling it (or even giving away low-value stuff that's still functional) on facebook is basically just throwing it out / destructively recycling it.
I'm willing to give Meta the information that I enjoy old cars, bar trivia, and breakfast sandwich pop-ups.
Users.
In Portland, Oregon area Craigslist was popular, but is now a ghost town. Everybody has moved to Facebook marketplace.
I'm in WhatsApp groups with friends who live abroad, SMS is not an option. We could use another chat app, but then I'd have to convince every friend from every group to use something else. WhatsApp is what every friend I have agrees on.
I belong to several hobby groups that exist only on Facebook or Reddit (or Discord, but I dislike it for several reasons). I'd like to ditch both Facebook and Reddit, but that would mean leaving those hobby groups, and given the joy they bring me, I'm not willing to pull the plug yet.
So you see, it's really not that easy.
I don't think you realize how much Telegram is associated with hated Russia and the local far-right in several European countries.
Ditto for phones, if you mean the PSTN – as time goes on, fewer and fewer people have ever really used that. When people around the world are communicating via their smartphones with a phone-number-based protocol, it’s overwhelmingly WhatsApp, and guess who owns that?
That definitely sounds harsher than intended. It's a meditation really. Nobody needs FB and Instagram. (please read as a meditation)
You mention “FB and Instagram”, and I haven’t used either in a decade myself. But the OP did mention “Meta products” and you are ignoring the elephant in the room: WhatsApp. In many countries it has completely replaced the PSTN: you cannot contact a business (they won’t answer normal calls and may not post email addresses), cannot get the necessary info on how to check into the reception-less accommodation one booked, and one will find it hard to maintain contact with people one may well wish to maintain contact with.
Someone might be perfectly happy being your friend, and not understanding why you never come to their parties that they advertise via the group chat on whatever platform, or insta posts or whatever.
"If they cared enough they would message me directly on my obscure to normies messaging platform!" Yeah your best friend might. The greater social circle?
I get it, I'm trying to get everyone on signal or onto federated platforms, but I'm realizing that if I wanna talk to The People, I need to go to where The People are.
It had a placard in it saying something like "You don't have 100 friends. You have like 4. And that's OK."
The more I'm getting older, the truer this has become. There is something extremely zen-like about letting the past trail away like the wake of a ship, as Watts said.
In an ideal world, those people were dear to me, and me to them, and we would all stay in touch and be one big happy family, n'importe the distance. But it takes plenty out of me just to be there for those that matter most. And for them, putting up with my quirks is burdensome but not an unscalable wall. As it is for me with their quirks in reverse.
In many countries, either WhatsApp or a PSTN number for receiving an SMS is used today for the things that you think are done with email. I have lived in two countries that have highly digitized government services, and they were provided over an official app where email wasn’t part of the signup flow.
Sure, maybe some people use email at work (but WhatsApp has eaten into even that in some regions), but then that address is so associated with work that they don’t use it for social contacts.
Only on HN could someone post a take like this without getting laughed at. Outside our very geeky HN bubble, hardly anyone (let's say in Europe, but all my friends in the US use it as well) uses anything other than WhatsApp. There's literally zero reason for the average user to switch.
In europe we never had free unlimited texts. Internet was cheaper than calling/texting, especially with everyone having wifi at home and work. So a cross-platform messaging app appeared and has replaced text and calling.
I always found this peculiar, you would think it would be the other way around. I wonder why that is?
Some hard core committed communists prefer telegram, but even they usually have to have whatsapp too. No one uses signal or even knows what it is.
Most people in Spain still rely and prefer voice calls than messages anyway. I believe half the country must still be illiterate as they manage to send voice message but struggle to send written messages on whatsapp.
On a personal level you lose a bit of information when you don't have whatsapp. For example I didn't join the whatsapp group of my dance class and I am often unaware of stuff they mention on it but that doesn't prevent me to attend said classes.
I am (mostly against my will) in multiple professional and personal Whatsapp groups. Use is constant and daily and unavoidable. It is the principal means of communication in both work and personal settings. Calls are always a second option.
I suspect your experience reflects only partial integration in local culture.
I am in andalusia, hardly the most modern area if you discount the migrants that call themselves expats.
As a sibling comment to yours stated, the hardest decision was deciding to stop using Meta.
I have a militant "let the leaves fall where they may" attitude towards stopping relationships with companies I detest (Microsoft, Amazon, Meta...) It all always works out fine.
Or attend an event in person. They advertise their in person events on the meshtastic Facebook group.
And I hate it. I had deactivated all my Meta accounts but reactivated WhatsApp because of school stuff.
Unless you're talking about parent groups. Because then you're fucked. Every parent group everywhere uses Facebook or Whatsapp and don't care that not everybody uses it. You will be excluded.
My daughter's school uses a clunky proprietary platform that is way, way worse than WhatsApp. I wish they used WhatsApp! Actually, they also do this, because being non techies their use of tech is all over the place and they adopted the worst of both worlds: school digital platform (very clunky) and, because it sucks, also WhatsApp. So important communications reach me both ways.
Sigh
The best compromise for such people, I guess, would be a work phone number that's solely for business WhatsApp communication.
You delete a FB acct? It reactivates. Fun! Almost like the company is built off fraud
For the down voters: Such as finding local business information or events in your community, and tons of other stuff which isn't anywhere else.
Facebook + Instagram already has more current information than the rest of the web combined.