WhatsApp introduces ads in its app

Would be nice if these kinds of articles would at least take a paragraph to plug some alternatives, such as Signal.

WhatsApp has long promoted itself as a safe alternative to apps like Telegram and Google’s Android messaging. Users flocked to the app globally, finding it a cheap and secure alternative to texting, particularly people in unstable political climates and authoritarian countries, since its messages cannot be easily intercepted without access to personal devices.

As always network effect will be the problem. I know plenty of people on WhatsApp and almost nobody on Signal

I don't find there is much network effect for one on one messaging. I have to use a few different apps to talk to all my friends, it's not a big deal to switch to/from Signal or Whatsapp. With groups it's more effort.

This reply screams LLM. Not really responding to the parent comment, nauseatingly anodyne in content. Not wrong, but not right. Will HN be overwhelmed with LLM trash?

Signal have a few things that make it a hard sell.

It's really hard to clean up media. You have to go into every single chat and from there go about deleting stuff. At least they finally added a "select all" option in there recently.

So the size of it just grows and grows and grows until it's using all the space on your phone. Not a good fit for non-technical types.

Secondly, no web view. There is the desktop app yes, which is flaky, slow and wants to update every day or two.

I just can't see average people putting up with those inconveniences and that's just a couple of them.

Discerning people will already seek out other options on their own, the vast majority won't. We know the pattern from the respective Reddit and Twitter enshittification phases.

It's a problem but not insurmountable. Otherwise we'd all still be using ICQ/AIM/MSN Messenger/Skype/etc.

With all the LLM enthusiasts here why would HN not be at the forefront of it?

> So the size of it just grows and grows and grows until it's using all the space on your phone. Not a good fit for non-technical types.

To be fair I've met plenty of non-techie types whose phones were "full" of stuff from WhatsApp or photos that had already been backed up, because the idea they could clear their local storage would never cross their minds. I've seen people buy new phones instead of clearing their cache.

We are off those because of multi messanger platforms made switching to the "hot new thing" very low friction. It was only once mobile came along that the playing field narrowed so much.

Current networks have way more lock in than back in the day.

This does not match my experience in Germany. If somebody gives you their phone number it is just expected that you can reach them on WhatsApp and i have yet to meet anyone that doesn't use WhatsApp.

Yes it's also a problem there but WhatsApp gives you the tools to fix the problem in minutes if not seconds, or ask your tech literate relative or friend to help and it only takes them the couple of minutes to clear it and maybe show you how. With Signal it can take hours of work so what happens is the non-techy person understands "oh this app filled my phone up I shouldn't use it".

It’s a quote from the linked article.

I stopped recommending Signal to nontechnical folks due to the inability to back up messages on iOS. People are pretty protective of their message history, and having everything tied to a single device with no recourse for backups is a nonstarter.

The slightly longer version of the story is that my wife, travelling alone, had some trouble with an iPhone update (it hung for hours), and so she took it to the nearest Genius Bar; they eventually got the update to apply, but then did a factory reset “just to be safe”. Of course, everything except her Signal message history was restored from the automatic iCloud backups. She was devastated, and refuses to touch it now.

Please do not reply to say this was the fault of the Apple Store employee. It was, but at the same time, it also very much wasn't.

Oh yes this too. How could I forget!

It's easy to have multiple chat apps in parallel though, each with their own network.

Ads will make more people Signal-curious, or even drive people back to text messages. The average person who switches will convince a non-zero number of their contacts to come with them. The shift will start gradually. Think of Skype, which at one point everyone I knew was on. That network didn't protect them from being replaced by competitors.

People are also increasingly worried about retaliation from the government for their supposedly free speech, which has already driven a few people I know to secure alternatives that aren't operated by Trump allies.

Network effects aren't a big deal when it comes to messaging. There was a time when people thought iPhone wouldn't be able to overcome Blackberry because everyone was on BBM. In the last couple decades we've seen people go from ICQ to AIM/Yahoo/MSN to Google Talk to Skype to Facebook Messenger to BBM to Whatsapp/iMessage/Instagram, with dozens of smaller options like Kik, Viber, Line, Signal, Telegram all hanging around. It doesn't take much to cause another shift in the space.

It's very frustrating, I admit. Backups and archival are indeed a pet peeve of mine, as are the frequent redesigns (but that's just a "feature" virtually every single god-damn modern app).

What is the alternative though? A private chat app, mobile + desktop, syncing, with enough ease of setup and use for normies to adopt? I don't see it.

I suppose the true alternative would be a standard open protocol that enables this cross platform.

If I can only message with discerning people might as well not have any messaging app at all.

I used to use Signal exclusively rather than Whatsapp, but I've had lots of issues sending media. This has not been a problem with Whatsapp, so I've recently begun to use Whatsapp more. There are also issues with message history that I've encountered on Signal that don't exist on Whatsapp.

If Signal could address these concerns I'd be happy to move away from Whatsapp.

With this news I'll likely need to reassess my use of Whatsapp again.

That sounds nice, but in reality most of my extended friend group has migrated to WhatsApp over the last 10 years and is unlikely to change anytime soon. Interoperability would be nice (like we used to have) but that will never happen until Apple stops using their lack of interoperability as a way to ostracize young people and sell more phones.

That seems true throughout the most of the Western world, excluding the US. I have a big WhatsApp network, but that's by virtue of living in SF and NY. Without big immigrant/expat/world-traveler communities, I think most of the US just uses iMessage or regular text.

WhatsApp’s desktop app is also a good deal better. Signal is very mobile-centric which I’m sure makes sense for a lot of people, but I’m sitting in front of a real keyboard for most of my days and so it’s a nice when desktop clients are first-class citizens and not afterthoughts.

It’s frustrating that it’s basically only Telegram and WhatsApp that take desktop platforms seriously.

> What is the alternative though? A private chat app, mobile + desktop, syncing, with enough ease of setup and use for normies to adopt? I don't see it.

iMessage, if you only use Apple devices or are willing/able to hack around the Apple-device requirement.

Where you can't even do message backups properly, and risk of losing messages is a much bigger issue for the average issue than ubiquitous ads becoming slightly more ubiquitous

Yeah, it's true that almost everyone has WhatsApp, but that doesn't by itself create a network effect. Do people refuse to use other platforms?

Your llm detector needs serious calibration

Signal does other things which annoy me to the point I can't consider it as a viable option for me, my family and close friends. For a start, it wants a full access to contacts and if doesn't get it it pops internal notification about it - but that one is easily dismissible. But then, I keep a strict notification settings on all my devices and Signal doesn't like that and wants me to turn these on. Perhaps because they can't otherwise push notifications about donation - which also appears within the app.

People behind Signal have a very corporate approach to their app where a permanent "no" doesn't exist when it comes to user choice - all what you have is "not now".

Then there's linking devices; it's not permanent but temporary and devices are removed automatically after 30 days. You can't even log into your account with tablet any more - that was replaced with linking. Cross-platform synchronization - didn't work for me at all despite being a loudly announced success.

> For a start, it wants a full access to contacts and if doesn't get it it pops internal notification about it - but that one is easily dismissible.

This is at least an improvement over WhatsApp, which removes core functionality (e.g. creating groups) when this access is refused

But why reply with a snippet like that? Just a normal non-sequitur, or a machine regurgitation?