Technology

Network effect? You want to be where your friends or other interesting people are. Even if it is a shitty place you just kinda end up there together.

Still using WhatsApp only, because I failed to convince people to switch to Signal (so far).

I'm still using WhatsApp as it's so so okay with privacy still (messages should be end to end encrypted),it frankly works great and intuitive and the competition is frankly "meh". The web app of whatsapp is frankly awesome though lately it's been having weird issues with Firefox, thinking I'm running v60 or something and refusing to load for about an hour,, then a reload suddenly makes it work. It's weird, but beyond that, it's awesome and I can't live without.

Signal and telegram both lack a buttload of features, signal is barely functional and has many problems with basic usage

Believe you me, I'm an open source guy. I switched to Linux 25 years ago, and 20 years ago it was my only desktop. I almost exclusively use open source software where possible, and I'll jump off telegram as soon as there is an open source version out there that can a) compete with WhatsApp in functionality and intuitively, and b) I need to be able to convince my social circle to use it.

Not using Whatsapp is basically shutting yourself out of the conversation with family and friends, at least with me. It's not really an option. Vyber, signal, fb messenger, Instagram, it's easy to go without those, but Whatsapp has become one of those social backbones of society. I absolutely hate the fact it's owned by meta, but there is simply no getting around it afaik. It's a pretty brilliant app to use too, so that helps. At least it doesn't suck.