Hey all
A few years ago, when I started my journey into the realm of open source, decentralisation and privacy as an ignorant, naïve young internet user, I had already registered with numerous companies without giving it much thought. I randomly signed up for services using my google and microsoft email addresses, which I opened when I was very young.
I have been struggling with this naivety and carelessness of my younger self for several years now. During this time I have gone through all the services I have ever registered for, requested my data everywhere, written dozens of emails, deleted my google account a year ago, then the amazon account, my apple account and yesterday now also the microsoft account, together with the email I have used the longest and replaced everything with open source, privacy respecting services.
Now there’s only one big player missing, as you can imagine. Yes, Meta has me in its grip like no other company with its chat service WhatsApp. I myself would have been ready to finally ditch this increasingly bad service long ago unfortunately, those around me don’t see it the same way.
But I have now started my preparations:
- I have cleared out, structured and organised all my contacts.
- I have said goodbye to all long-dead groups.
And now comes the exciting part:
in the near future, I will write a message to my most important contacts explaining that WhatsApp, with all its clutter, has become a burden for me and that there are better, privacy-respecting alternatives. I will suggest Signal to them and explain that I will slowly withdraw from WhatsApp. I won’t be on the platform as often, but I’ll still be available for emergencies. And that they should take a look at this very familiar looking app. their data and I will thank them for it :)
In conclusion, I would like to say that I have realised that you can achieve anything, not radically, but in incremental steps. Especially when others are affected, you have to give them space and time to familiarise themselves with the alternatives without having to deviate from your own convictions. And if there is no other way and if they are also averse to this plan in the long term, new ways will be found. I have already lived without a mobile phone for more than half a year a few times and have also managed that.
What do you think? I’m interested in your opinion :)
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I think this is a sound way of doing it. Rather than trying to force people to switch and potentially alienating them from using an app like signal and moving away from their usual apps. The people who really want to continue chatting with you will come along for the ride.
I think so too. It worked with my parents.
Same here, cut contacts with 80% of my digital entourage, they don’t value speaking to me enough to switch to another app
Getting rid of WhatsApp is the most challenging part for sure, specially because people at work choose to use this platform. Funny enough, signal is basically the same as WhatsApp and easily accessible on the play store but people refuse to use since they are accustomed to WhatsApp and because the illiteracy on these kind of technologies.
Exactly, and thats why you have to introduce them to it very gently
I set up Matrix a few days ago. I installed the telegram, whatsapp and signal bridges, so that I can have everything in one place. You can choose between different client apps for web, pc and mobile. Everything now works great behind on my VPN without any open ports - I could open a port and use matrix itself.
Oh wait what?! There is a WhatsApp bridge?
Yes. If you’re into selfhosting you should definitely give it a try. Under the hood it uses the Whatsapp web feature as far as I can tell. You’ll need the Whatsapp app on your phone or a spare one. But as I only use it for a few days, I can’t tell you more about outages - maybe when they change something in Whatsapp web.
If they care, they will migrate. Leave behind all the rest, they’re not worth your time.
Well it is not that easy obviously. WhatsApp isn’t a chat-with-friends app anymore. For me it has become a part of my work life and I hate it. That’s why I said I need to take steps incrementally.
