I just strongly disagree that people don’t have a choice.
It also kind of depends on your environment, especially where you live.
If you live in places like US where most messaging is done through SMS or iMessage and calls are done using standard phone call or FaceTime, it’s probably just “not easy” to move away from Meta services.
But when you live in places where Meta services (especially WhatsApp, where it’s the most used messaging service outside the US) are the only way to contact anyone, well, it’s virtually impossible to move away from Meta services.
If I stopped using WhatsApp at this moment, it literally means I won’t have any way to contact anyone. Very close friends and close family, maybe I can force them to install Signal, but anyone else? Probably not.
Phone call, maybe, but it’s expensive and most people don’t pick up phone anymore. SMS? Well, not only it’s expensive, even if I’m fine with paying for SMS, most people probably don’t so they won’t reply. It’s not “harder to contact anyone”, it’s literally “can’t contact anyone”.
That reminds me, though I understand the controversy of EU’s “standardized messaging protocol” regulation, I kind of wish it can work out somehow, so I can get the heck out of WhatsApp and still able to contact people.
It also kind of depends on your environment, especially where you live.
If you live in places like US where most messaging is done through SMS or iMessage and calls are done using standard phone call or FaceTime, it’s probably just “not easy” to move away from Meta services.
But when you live in places where Meta services (especially WhatsApp, where it’s the most used messaging service outside the US) are the only way to contact anyone, well, it’s virtually impossible to move away from Meta services.
If I stopped using WhatsApp at this moment, it literally means I won’t have any way to contact anyone. Very close friends and close family, maybe I can force them to install Signal, but anyone else? Probably not.
Phone call, maybe, but it’s expensive and most people don’t pick up phone anymore. SMS? Well, not only it’s expensive, even if I’m fine with paying for SMS, most people probably don’t so they won’t reply. It’s not “harder to contact anyone”, it’s literally “can’t contact anyone”.
That reminds me, though I understand the controversy of EU’s “standardized messaging protocol” regulation, I kind of wish it can work out somehow, so I can get the heck out of WhatsApp and still able to contact people.