Signal seems to be booming right now in the Netherlands. I've been using it for years and never managed to grow my contact list beyond single digits, being a few friends in tech and a few who were very privacy conscious. All of those people were also available on WhatsApp and we'd often forget and message one another there.

But since January the trust in Meta has not only plummeted but it's become a mainstream enough talking point that I now receive invites to join Signal groups from--for want of a better term--normal people. Two of the local parenting groups I'm on are on Signal and no one ever mentions it or questions it, it's just "here's the group link" and the expectation that everyone has it installed.

Apps are popular until they aren’t. Yahoo Messenger, MSN Messenger and Skype were all popular once.

Ads are one thing, but now WhatsApp is letting businesses message you in Europe, only with opt out. This is pretty frustrating. I suspect some users will seek alternatives.

WhatsApp has been selling your metadata to facebook for quite a while now. Their marketing gimmick of "end-to-end encryption" makes everyone think it's safe and private but here's the thing, your messages don't matter to them. It's the metadata they use to profile you. Remember the quote from Michael Hayden: "We kill people based on metadata."

They could publicly execute cute puppies, live stream this and force the users to watch it. They still won't lose significant user base.

I've given up on trying to get my non-tech network to use some other messenger, it's just too exhausting and wasted time.

It's the same in many countries, especially the developing ones. In Kenya for example, you can run out of data but Whatsapp will still work. It's that crucial to daily life, it's get an exception by telecom companies.

In India a palm will pop out of the phone screen every few hours and deliver a tight slap and people might still use it.

Even banks et cetera are making it the first class communication medium especially for OTP (which technically is safer than SMS but a glaring lock into a desk-less foreign company and at the same time the “OTP” can literally be the single point to take over someone’s almost entire life - including almost every single paisa). Every other day I am shown a sneaky lightning popup or two asking me to consent to send everything or something on WhatsApp. Sometimes the popup is about something entirely else but there’s an already checked checkbox with WhatsApp consent. Calling it bizarre will be an understatement.

It’s similar in India. Even many businesses only use WhatsApp for orders and communications with customers. Heck, even the police use it to communicate between their people and with complainants/victims. Politicians use it between their party people and to send messages to the public. The average person on the street no longer knows what an SMS is or how to use it.

But I manage without WhatsApp (it’s also a privileged position to do so). Not having WhatsApp also helps avoid seeing all the junk and misinformation that people forward on it without any thought. There’s actually a name for this in India: “WhatsApp University”, which is a derogatory term for how people believe anything they read on WhatsApp and share it around without any analysis or thought or skepticism whatsoever.

It’s not like there’s no alternatives.

But tbh if they keep the ads out of messages I don’t see it an affecting people much.

> If you’re not on WhatsApp, no updates or news from your kids school, your sports team, your family, your car dealership etc. for you.

Maybe, but not being in WhatsApp is also a signal.

Here’s an advertising model I’ve thought about but never seen:

The app itself is 100% ad free and runs on credits. You get credits through se other portal by logging in to watch ads whenever it’s convenient for you.

Good app experience for the user, and potentially better experiences for the advertisers because they get the target audience when they are most open to ads (and not annoyed by them).

I mean, I'm in Switzerland and I recently deleted my Whatsapp after reading Careless People. Too few people in our modern world have the courage to let the leaves fall where they may.