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!
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.
Thankfully I don't have people I need on WhatsApp, but it took some convincing.
Nowadays I only have dentist and barbershop on WhatsApp, all my folks are on Telegram, including all work communications.
WhatsApp was always lacking features; WhatsApp web can't replace a full featured desktop client which is a must have for me; and its mobile client is inconvenient in every possible way.
Great, I can't wait for Whatsapp to be the only way to reach customer support and make payments. I always felt the confused look of people when I tell them I don't have Whatsapp wasn't enough.
always felt the confused look of people when I tell them I don’t have Whatsapp wasn’t enough.
the worst part is that most people cannot fathom that you don't have Whatsapp and you want to continue not having. The confused look is because their way of thinking is "ok you don't have, so what, open an account, it's taking 10 seconds".
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.
I feel like FOSS apps keep getting more viable while closed source apps keep getting worse. I feel like the next version of the internet is the one few know about. Even Mastodon is getting better, and Lemmy is pretty much a reddit equivalent now.
Because with nonlibre/nonfree/closed apps, user interest is never at the front. It is only considered at the beginning when apps need to gain userbase, then they can exploit it.
Every app that take away user ability to inspect, modify or share it is creating a path for abuse.
If only there was a standards-based platform that everyone could use, supported by all telecommunications providers. Ah dammit. Probably just a pipe dream. /s
You should try snikket. It can run on a 1$/month VPS and gives you and friends/family a really easy to run xmpp server. Easy for not so technical people.
And WeChat sucks. The only reason it dominates in China is because the government mandated a bunch of social control stuff to run there making it virtually mandatory just to exist in China.
It’s a little hard to imagine for us Americans, but internationally WhatsApp has a thriving unofficial ecosystem of businesses operating solely out of the chat app.
I love to hate on Meta as much as the next guy on Lemmy, but this is probably one of the sounder business decisions Meta has made in awhile.
Man, messaging is a nightmare. I use signal with a few of my closest contacts, whatsapp with most other people, sms as a fallback and for work I have to occasionally use Teams and fucking Viber (ugh). At least I managed to liberate myself from the clutches of Slack.
If only there was some standard way to get these apps to talk to each other so everybody could use what they want. Oh wait, there was, it was called XMPP, it worked perfectly and big tech fucking killed it and replaced it with the irritating clusterfuck that is the current status quo.
Luckily they don't have to switch. Your good friends from the European union have a solution for you (And the latest beta for whatsapp features the skeleton for their implementation of that standard)
What I did was say I'm deleting my WhatsApp account in [insert sensible time] and if anyone wants to contact me, to use Signal. Lost contact to some, but many followed.
At the company’s global Conversations event in Mumbai, WhatsApp introduced an in-app shopping feature for merchants and customers. Dubbed ”Flows,” [...]
That name sounds more like a feminine hygiene product than a shopping platform.
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.
I was recently in Brazil and it amazes me how the country adopted the platform. You can do everything in it. And it’s not that you’re always talking to someone on the other side. It’s all automated. Remember those gigantic labyrinths of menus you had to listen when calling a business? Now it’s all in WhatsApp, but with the advantage of being much faster to read. I asked for a service in a company, they gave me a protocol number. When I wanted to check on it, I just had to type the number on WhatsApp and it would tell me if it was ready.
So, no need to develop GUI, sites, and so on. Everything is accessible through WhatsApp.
So, I understand why Meta rolled this out and started with Brazil.
In the end, it feels like we made full circle and we’re coming back to the Telnet era of doing business.
I'm really interested how this is going to play out. I'm seeing this from a European perspective - Meta has show many times, that they shit on the GDPR. And while it seemed, that nothing really happened so far, that authorities are getting traction. Fines are racking up. The Digital Services Act and the Digital Markets Act are going to introduce more regulations, and I think that the future might hold even more surprises for Meta, especially if they succeed in build all these new things into WhatsApp.
first they copied it from snapchat (meta loves to copy from smaller alternatives to kill them) second they added it only people where continuing to ask them for it (me too)
This is kind of funny. Some of these features I would see see as Google's turf. However, since Google can't create a text messaging service, Meta can use their messaging app to encroach.
Yep, when Meta bought it, I warned my group friend chats that the second they start trying to monetize it, I'm going to whine until they all switch to Signal. Guess it's time to start nagging
If it's different parts of the same system I really don't like if it gets split up to multiple apps. Take steam, there I need two apps, one for the general store and it's functions and one for communicating with my friends. In that case I'd rather would have one app that fits all.
But if I don't need several functions of an app and they are also hurting the experience with it, I'd rather would have the sourced out to other apps.
The thing is, in systems like WhatsApp we don't decide what is the best for us, but WhatsApp.
Maybe integrating some features is better, maybe separation.
Or maybe third way, separated things under one package (for example all-in-one packages like Nextcloud or Thunderbird).
By "developing countries", do you mean "most of the world outside the US"? Because WhatsApp is used extensively in Europe as well. Which means you're either ignorant, condescending, or both.
I meant countries like India, Brazil etc. They heavily use WhatsApp mostly because people are illiterate and poor. People use WhatsApp in Europe but not as much when compared to India.