You heard a cool new word and used it where it doesn’t work, this feature isn’t bad at all. If Signal didn’t alienate a large number of users by removing SMS maybe switching would be more viable.
Yes I dropped signal when it stopped supporting sms. That was a really dumb choice and I honestly don’t know why they did it
I’m curious, why that feature was so important for you?
Because 90%+ of my contacts use sms (USA) and keeping touch across multiple apps is a huge pain. Like remembering which contact uses which service is stupid.
Turning a messaging app for myself and friends into a data farming social media app full of paid promotions is absolutely the definition of enshittification.
The enshittification actually began several years ago, back when FB bought WhatsApp. That was the moment you gave up on privacy, the moment that was a clear sign that it was all going to go downhill from there. If y’all didn’t quit WhatsApp at that time, then you bought it upon yourselves. The truth is, you’ve been using a shitty service for a long time and whoring your data to Meta and making Zuckerberg richer, so this latest feature bloat or w/e isn’t the least bit interesting.
Unofficially, yes probably. But officially Facebook only upped the ante on user data connection from WhatsApp more recently according to their privacy policy. Sorry, “Meta”
Unless I’ve missed something I don’t see how this makes WhatsApp worse…? Just don’t sign up to the people’s channels if you don’t want to 🤷🏻♂️
This is the beginning of monetizing the app after they started collecting user data a few months back. The more aggressively they decide to monetize, the more aggressive they’ll be about pushing promoted content. Remember when Instagram had no ads?
That’s how this works. And they’re certainly not going to choose to make less money off of their app over time with the market dominance that they have. Why would they when users will continue to use it?
I don’t get why everyone isn’t on signal. Its kind of a no brainier.
Signal doesn’t have a marketing department worth billions or synergy with any popular platforms
What’s enshitty about this?
Monetizing the app
I’m not seeing anything about monetization in this article, could you be more specific?
If you log into the app, you’ll see promoted content from celebrities and organizations. What do you think drives those promotions?
It’s either direct paid promotion, user data being sold to ad firms, or a combination.
I don’t use WhatsApp, I only have this article to go off of. You need to include more context with editorialized titles like this.
I’d love to switch to Signal and I do have 1 contact there. Everyone else uses FB or whatsapp and just doesn’t care. What am I supposed to do?
What am I supposed to do?
Decide if your privacy is more important than their convenience and your feelings of FOMO.
Right, but if I need to contact a friend or family. How am I supposed to do it without affecting privacy? If the other person doesn’t use Signal or else.
Honestly, go back to sms. It is the least worst option compared to FB.
Pretty sure WA started out pure shit and only got worse when Meta bought it.
I will never switch to something that only treats phones as “primary device” and adds extra hassle to support PC as a “secondary device”. I also find very concerning the lack of understanding of the value of anonimity even when communications are private, they even mock people that want privacy and anonimity.
another non-deal breaking but still telling issue is the lack of a clear roadmap for signal.
I also find it crazy that people don’t understand the value of privacy. Telling people that Nissan wants to sell information about your sexual activity seemed to wake some of my social circle up. But only in the context of Nissan, which almost certainly doesn’t have that data. Meta almost certainly does.
What sort of roadmap are you looking for in Signal? It does everything I need it to do, personally.
I am not looking for anything specific since i am not planning to use it, the issues I pointed are deal breakers as I said.
Regarding the roadmap,I only expect them to share it. They have talked about their vision and desire to be self sustainable. It would show they have a clear plan even if it involves testing features.
I expected more people in EU use Signal after even the EU deciding to use it over any other one. Seems like people don’t care.
I feel like this thread has been bombarded by the Zuckerberg defense brigade.
“All I did was misrepresent something harmless, done by a company that’s doing so much more horrible things that I shouldn’t be using their product in the first place, and now people are calling me out on it. Clearly, they are wrong.”
So, what the harm is Whatsapp channel ?
