After seeing WhatsApp in-app notification today, I messaged my friends telling them that I would be deleting the app.
I’m sad to report that I’ve received a lot of pushback, ranging from: “it’s too late to keep things from the Zuck” to, “it’s too hard to move to another app.”
@vishae I’ve had a bit more success. Transitioned my main non-need friend group and my family group. We moved to Signal.
@vishae same here… people don’t care. Some I could at least convince to also use Telegram and/or Signal, but no one deleted WhatsApp. What‘s worse is that they just keep your data. You can’t really delete your account, just delete the data from your device. Also, people will never get notified when they write you on WhatsApp, it’s like you‘re ignoring them.
@hutaffe well, I come from a country where not having whats app means that you won’t be able to communicate with a lot of people, including service providers. Tech friends now better and are using different tools, but the majority of people simply don’t care, as you said. It’s sad, but the truth. Same for FB… tons of business are being done thought the platform. So people have to have it.
@pcora I know… it just makes me sad. Businesses think they need to rely on that but I think it is also a risk for them. Our neighbor didn’t realize we did not answer any message on WhatsApp in the last two years, because we just don‘t have it anymore. „Oh you don‘t have WhatsApp? Well I can then delete your number, right?“ It‘s a synonym for their phone. „Normal“ people cannot distinguish these tools (it’s not the first time I had to see this). I’m a little harder on that. If people don’t even care to communicate with me through standard tools like text messages or phone calls, or with a different app that does exactly the same, it can’t be too important for them to communicate with me at all, so…
@hutaffe @canion It’s part of the reason why I mass-messaged my friends; I didn’t want them to message me on WhatsApp and think I was ignoring them. Although I did that on FB two years ago and I still have friends asking me why I don’t reply to their FB messages…
@pcora I actually make it a point to tell services that if they expect me to communicate with them via FB then it’s not going to happen. Companies took forever to understand that social media was a thing, it’s going to take users to tell them that social media shouldn’t replace normal avenues of communications (eg. email, phone, face-to-face)
@vishae been there, done that.. but imagine that whatsapp is to Brazil, almost what wechat is to China. And with so many people using and not caring about it, you are the one that loses for not using. 🙁
I remember that it came to a point that certain business were not even picking up the phone anymore. It was all throught FB Msg or Whatsapp.
@hutaffe I started sending messages to friends and family about this, as well, today. I’m getting some traction but not a lot. If they want to reach me in the future, they’ll find a way, I gave them instructions. That said, I wonder how I can force WhatsApp to delete my account with them. They are subject to the GDPR.
@mangochutney Good luck with the transition! I was wondering with GDPR as well but then… it’s Facebook, what can we expect. If you find out how it works, let me know 😉
@hutaffe I will.