Eh, whatsapp isn't ideal and its owner is one of the big devils of today, but it's the only way to send and receive instant messages among billions of people. I despise it, but it's the only way I can contact people. Needless to say, they don't give a single flying fuck about privacy.

Whatsapp outages make people migrate to Telegram for 1-2 days at most, nobody ends up staying there. Signal? I've only ever met three other people in RL who have even heard of it, and I work in IT.

A more apt comparison would be to languages. Whatsapp is english: clunky, weird, full of nonsense, but it's what "everyone talks". Signal would probably be lojban or esperanto.

[–] shitescalates@midwest.social 1 points 1 year ago (1 children)

This is SMS in the US. No one uses WhatsApp, telegram or matrix. Every iphone user uses imessage and so we are stuck with SMS.

[–] TehPers@beehaw.org 0 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Aside from needing a phone, I really don't see the issue with SMS. For sending quick messages to people directly, is there really a better tool? You (most likely) already have a phone plan, you already have a phone, and your phone is always on you. Everyone you're trying to contact is in the same boat, even people who are technically illiterate. All phones with phone plans support SMS, unless there's weird plans I don't know about.

When it comes to more complex needs (group management, e2e encryption, etc) other services are better of course. I don't use SMS to text my group of friends, it's really not well suited for the job.

[–] Prof_Eibe@discuss.tchncs.de 1 points 1 year ago

SMS does not have any encryption at all.

[–] Asymptote@lemmy.dbzer0.com 1 points 1 year ago

I'm not sure I have all of them, but I regularly use (privately)

encrypted email
unencrypted email
text
Meta Facebook Messanger
Meta Instagram messages
Meta WhatsApp
Signal
Telegram
Microsoft Teams (yes, even privately)

I'm tired boss.

[–] debil@lemmy.world 0 points 1 year ago (1 children)

As a Signal user and an Esperantist I agree. They both require a somewhat curious mind for you to bump into them in the first place. Unless you have that friend/relative who always recommends weird stuff for you (to ignore).

[–] ximtor@lemm.ee 1 points 1 year ago

Why would it even be weird or anything? I only use Signal and its pretty much the same as whatsapp on the outside...just in blue. The only reason people dont use it is because "eVerYonE hAs WhAtsApP" and they dont bother. 20 useless crap apps but 2 messengers is too much