[Daisywh]

I remember switching to WhatsApp many years ago, mainly because it had no ads and encrypted chats, while other apps were constantly crammed with ads and features I didn't need. Now I feel like I'm slowly going back to that old path. Sometimes it really feels like no app can really stay clean for long.

[safety1st]

FOSS and open protocols are the answer of course. Signal is unimpeachable enough for me, but for the true believers there is Matrix with a bunch of third party clients.

Once you internalize the how and why (such as "forks are good" and "the more publicly auditable code the better"), there's really no going back and for the rest of your life you prefer FOSS even when you can't use it.

That's why I think that for some future generation there will be a FOSS equivalent of the waves of democracy that spread across the world starting in the 18th century. Once a country becomes democratic and people understand the benefits, they never really want to roll that change back. Our current generation is probably not going to double down on the "right to fork," but once an individual gets it they get it for good, so I feel it's just a matter time before a sea change occurs, even if we're all dead when it happens.

[tigroferoce]

I think this is two sided topic:

- on one side there is the increasing number of features in WhatsApp that nobody asked for and that make the experience worse and worse, I agree. Yet, on the other side of the world a 1B people in China use WeChat for so many things beside communicating, so I understand Meta's appetite to become the West WeChat. Still I hate it. - on the other side there is the business model of WhatsApp. Or the complete lack of it. It's 100% unrealistic that a global, always on, high availability, high security service is free. These things are expensive and they need to be monetized.

It's either ads, either fees on extra services they are providing through the app, either a monthly subscription. Now, I think nobody would pay for WhatsApp and they would lose their market immediately if they went that route (for many good reasons). They tried hard to position WhatsApp as WeChat, failing at that (for many good reasons). Ads is the only thing that is left IMO.

[palata]

> It's 100% unrealistic that a global, always on, high availability, high security service is free.

What about Signal? It seems like they run on donations, don't they?

[ReptileMan]

>so I understand Meta's appetite to become the West WeChat

Revolut will probably get there first

>It's 100% unrealistic that a global, always on, high availability, high security service is free. These things are expensive and they need to be monetized.

Do you have any information how much whatsapp costs per user per month? Threema seems to be doing fine with just one 5$ forever.

[jowea]

I read somewhere that their monetization was in WhatsApp Business

[SunlitCat]

Coworkers convinced me to switch to whatsapp a few years ago (like 2023 or so). The reason, tho was as old as the internet is! They wanted to see the pictures of our cats we have at our workplace, which I liked to take with my phone. Later on WhatsApp became (sadly) handy for other tasks as well but also as a good way to stay in contact with friends, living further away! :D