WhatsApp: “you can now use email to access your account if you can’t use your phone for some reason”
This community: “REEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE”
People acting like a phone number isn’t 100x more personally identifiable than email are delusional. I have like 700 unique emails atm, and can create a new one within seconds. I only have a few numbers.
In my country we’re required to have our own identification tied to the number and we can only legally have a handful of number under a person name. Email is nothing lol.
I have a very, very old SIM card. It’s from the 3G era, which means I miss out on my phone’s 5G capabilities. However, when I went to buy a new card I found out you’re required to take a selfie and send to the telecom company alongside your ID and email, which is creepy enough to keep me using my 3G SIM…
I lived in a country doing that, and couldn’t understand the people making social media profiles with their (actually traceable to a real life identity) phone numbers public. Don’t you love receiving spam calls?
I have a catch-all address with a personal domain. Infinite aliases for free.
Hmm🤔 I use Migadu and could probably set this up – is this actually a good idea?
If they’re all attached to the same personal domain then that’s just as personally identifiable though
I use Proton Mail, which lets you make ‘aliases’, which you can use for different sites. The alias forward staright to your main (or a nominated) email.
You can use https://simplelogin.io/ to do the same, and I’m sure there are similar services around.
E.g. I can’t have feckwhatsapp@feckfacebook.com as my WhatsApp email, and it would forward to whatever account I normally use.
I do this for pretty much everything on line, so they all have their own bespoke email for me.
The problem is that they’re reaching for emails in addition to phone numbers. Don’t think for a second they’re going to let you login with just email. They want email just to have yet another data metric to profile you with.
You mean instead of tying into a phone, right ?
The only point in time my lack of a phone number becomes an issue is for archaic stuff like this.
Maybe they need it to link WA accounts to FB accounts.
Signal FTW.
I know Signal is technically better but Telegram provides a much better user experience than Signal or WhatsApp and is also less problematic than WhatsApp.
Considering Telegram has partnered with Tencent, I wouldn’t say it’s less problematic.
My understanding is that Telegram is partnered with a non profit crypto group, and that group is partnered with like 20 different companies that validate transactions, one of which is Tencent.
Granted I only read a couple articles on it in the last five minutes cause this was the first I heard of it, there could be more to the story I missed.
Yep.
Telegram is a decent middle ground. UI/UX matters, I’m not sure how the folks at Signal are completely missing that point.
The Signal UI is OK, as a competitor to SMS. But it’s terrible compared to Telegram. This matters to non-technical people, it’s how you get them to use it. Plus the seamless connection between devices - that’s crucial. I can chat using whatever device is in front of me.
Just out of curiosity, since I am fine with the Signal UI/UX: what would you say are the top features that make Telegram better?
You need to explicate the hell out of this cuz I vehemently disagree and point out, in terms of user experience its dogshit for me (but also implicitly that Telegram is conveniently insecure by default and even if you “encrypt”, ifs a non-documented public slop version of messaging encryption [novel + security by obscurity]
Consequently, I would never be comfortable trusting it
What do you want expectorated, why IMO Telegram is less problematic than WhatsApp or why the UI is way better than Telegram or Signal? Cause they’re very different things.
I am waiting for Cross Messenger Law of Europe it means that Signal and Whatsapp User can talk to each other.
If Whatsapp really wants to scare away there Users many are gonna switch because of the Email old persons have EMails but no clue how to use it.
Its easier to install another Messenger than EMail Verifikation.
DDG proxy here I come
