All these (ad)ons always take priority over performance.
Better than Twitter, but still not great.
Anyone trying to reproduce WeChat in the west is insane. Nobody needs it. Nobody wants it. The conditions that allowed it to take off in China do not exist in the west.
The only company with a real chance of success is Apple, and their business model is a little more resistant to such corruption, at least for now.
The rabid duopolist that doesn’t even allow users to install whatever apps they want on their devices? The one that doesn’t even allow alternative browser engines? The one that outright refuses to use any and all open standards or to allow interoperability unless forced by governments? They might be one the worst companies in the world to do it.
Yeah. Apple basically has a captive market. Not to the extent of WeChat, but more than other western players.
The fact that Apple makes their money (mostly) on hardware sales, subscriptions, and their big-ass cut of App Store sales, instead of advertising like Google and Facebook, is why they are not likely to pull this crap in the near future. They don’t need to.
The online advertising ship is sinking, and Facebook is a rat desperately trying to find a way off.
Facebook is the best positioned by far, they just need a popular payment service
Are there any WhatsApp clients without all the crap noone asking for?
There soon will be because EUR turned their arm into opening the chat protocol. As soon as that happens expect other chats to be able to talk to whatsapp without the oficial app. So hopefully… Soon.
That EU proposal is definitely not good. I don’t know what you’ve read but it practice it will require to ban all open source chat applications https://mullvad.net/en/blog/2023/2/1/eu-chat-control-law-will-ban-open-source-operating-systems/
I read an article about. Here is another one. Doesn’t seem to mention any of the effects on Foss software so I might be out of the loop.
What you’re linking to is about their proposition of chat control for CSAM scanning, which is a completely separate thing from the Digital Markets Act that will force big Messengers to become interoperable.
Am I the only one who doesn’t want any, “do everything,” apps? I’d rather have 10 apps that each do one thing really well than have one app that haphazardly attempts to do 10 things.
I see you are rebelling against Web 2.0, where you only need 3-4 apps or sites to do everything! Don’t be afraid. The old days of dozens of sites is gone and now the oligarchy of megacorps will take care of you with your 2-3 apps. You’ll have fewer apps that could go wrong and you’ll ever need to keep up with your 1-2 apps! Eventually the FTC will see the error of their ways and your One App will truly simplify your life!
At some point we’re just back to building web browsers with spyware built in.
Make each program do one thing well. To do a new job, build afresh rather than complicate old programs by adding new “features”.
Unix philosophy. 50 years old idea. Imo devs would love to work that way but they are never the ones making decisions. And every CEO wants to have the new everything app ala wechat.
If I want to shop for something online, I’ll go to a website like Amazon.
If I want to transfer money online, I’ll go to a website like PayPal.
I don’t like the monopolizing those companies are doing, but they’re at least more transparent than doing it through a chat app. Can you even do returns for chat app purchases? I did a return with Amazon the other day and they just credited my account. They didn’t even ask for the book (I accidentally bought 2 copies) back.
I want out but no one in my group chats will leave. 😭
Whatsapp turning into WeChat should make Signal and Threema look even better.
If only people cared. Sadly, they don’t.
Source: am one of probably three people in the country that refuse to use Meta CRAPWARE. And thus, very lonely.
Some folk do. I’ve managed to convince at least 10 of my friends and family to install Signal and/or Threema.
It’s not just friends; I cannot do my work in my past three jobs without WhatsApp, because that’s how ingrained it is. And they were varied jobs too.
Client interactions? WhatsApp
External stakeholders? WhatsApp
Public enquiries? WhatsApp
No WhatsApp, no job, no income. That’s how ingrained it is.
Do you think 99% of the grannies and non-techies care? I support Signal and use it myself to communicate (with the 2-3 other people that use it…), but it’s not comparable with WhatsApp or Telegram which everyone has. It’s shitty but it’s reality. People even use Facebook Messenger over Signal.
Threema at 6€ is not really a good option for anyone anymore, a least not over Signal. Also they had an encryption obfuscation problem recently, read the longer comments at the bottom here and decide for yourself:
I know people who prefer Threema simply because they know what their revenue model is. Everyday I find that another person in my contacts has joined Signal. I don’t communicate with too many grannies besides my own two, both of whom have Signal installed on their phones ftr. My circle clearly isn’t your circle.
