It has been a long journey.
I have been gradually convincing my family, close relatives and friends to make the switch to Signal for over two years. I am already the “tech support guy” in all my circles so most didn’t really question it. Most of my friends are quite tech-savvy, and some even did use Signal before I talked to them about it.
This also filtered out some “friends” who were never that close to me to begin with. So, that’s a bonus, I guess.
Overall, my recommendation to others interested would be to tell people how much you don’t like Meta’s business model instead of the privacy aspect. I already ditched Facebook and Instagram many years ago, and this helped defend my point a bit better.
WhatsApp has significant market dominance in Europe, to the point that only one or two people I know who live on that continent don’t use it. If you give someone your phone number in Europe, they will almost certainly send you a WhatsApp message, not an SMS.
It’s not a need in the sense that you’ll die without it, but not having it adds significant friction to social relationships.
At least Europe rarely uses WhatsApp for business purposes. It’s worse in Asia and South America where WhatsApp and Facebook literally are the internet, including the enterprise space.
And the reason it’s less the default in the US isn’t because people are so forward-thinking to use signal, but iOS being so uniquitous that people use iMessage.
People everywhere are just somewhat lazy and just don’t know better.
I don’t think that’s quite it. iOS wasn’t as popular in the USA when WhatsApp use really started to take off elsewhere.
Instead, I think it was a combination of unlimited SMS plans being the norm, and most Americans having few international contacts.
That’s… Wow! Here, people prefer to use non-SMS options for messaging too, but if you give someone a phone number it’s pretty much assumed you’re getting an SMS unless they ask if you have WhatsApp, signal, or whatever else. That said, using Messenger is still pretty common here, as much as I’d wish it would die off. It is, slowly, but it needs to be quicker lol
If I put someone’s number into the contacts on my phone, I will see what messaging apps are connected to that phone number in most cases. If they have Signal, I’ll try that first. I’ll try WhatsApp before SMS because it’s a better user experience and probably encrypted.
Okay, that’s both cool and scary lol and Fair, yeah. I think WhatsApp would be the last on my list. I’d rather my telecom company siphon the data over Meta, but I get you
How much of the data Meta can siphon is an open question as I understand it. WhatsApp definitely uses encryption, but there are a bunch of ways the client could send them the cleartext, especially if one allows their chatbot into a conversation.
It’s hard to say which is worse. I have a fair number of contacts on Signal now, and I find that’s a good balance of easy and trustworthy.
It’s not really that they get the clear texts, but that they get access to who you talk to, when, and kinda how long are your messages. That metadata is super valuable. Over long periods, just with that metadata there’s a lot that can be inferred.
My distrust of Meta wants to say they somehow siphon everything, but you’re probably right. We don’t know for sure, and speculating is probably just crazy-making at the end of the day.
I’m seriously just considering setting up a self hosted Matrix instance and piping all my chat apps through that. Get the more tech literate friends on something more secure, and then be done with the rest lol I’m basically already the unofficial (and untrained) sysadmin for my property lol