I mean yes but, you don’t have to use it.
My close friend groups almost exclusively uses it for communication, as much as I’d love to ditch the app, I’d then miss out on vital communication, I’ve tried to onboard them to Signal or Session but they won’t budge, so I have to make do.
I feel that. I have maybe 3 friends who use Signal. The rest are spread out sms, fb, discord, etc…
Try Matrix. It’s a hair more complex than Signal but it has a lot more features- closer to Discord than Signal.
Beeper.com is based on it- when they finally open the registration floodgates that will probably be the one to use. It’s just Matrix (fully federated) with hosted bridges to a few popular chat networks. And that integration is enough of a ‘carrot’ to persuade a lot of people to move.Tried a matrix instance, again no one interested to move from Discord, which is another platform I’d happily never use again.
I feel your pain. I tried to move my friend group to signal. They were fine with trying it out except one guy who just refused. Since he needed to be part of us planning things everyone just ended up using fb messenger anyways
Using Snapchat to actually chat sounds so frustrating.
Wow, imagine having to pay for dark mode.
Thank god none of my friends or relatives ever were really Snapchat users. But I’m held hostage by WhatsApp in here.
I just try to avoid tiktok. I’d use it if it wasn’t basically Spyware, but its literally got backdoor access for an authoritarian country that keeps saber rattling. Id rather use snapchat and I definitely don’t want to use that either. Its shame.
Can we decentralize social media too?
Social media is being decentralised the same way Lemmy is. Platforms such as Friendica, Pixelfed, Mastodon, etc are all platforms for decentralised social media.
WhatsApp is fine IMO. It’s really just an instant messanger that does about as much as any other. In terms of privacy, WhatsApp is far from bad compared with other apps. The fact that Meta own WhatsApp doesn’t really impact that too much.
I’m in the same boat. It freezes and crashes all the time on my phone. Been using it for so many years now and it’s never really improved. Wish I could move all my group chats somewhere else, but there’s no chance
