WhatsApp introduces ads in its app

Alice Newton-Rex, head of product at WhatsApp: “Alongside of private messaging, people were saying they wanted to hear more about topics, teams and organizations across WhatsApp.”

- I am pretty sure NO ONE asked to hear about more topics and organizations across whatsapp.

I'd literally PAY for a mod taking away the "updates" tab. I don't care about stories nor I want channels shoved in my face. I just need to message someone, from time to time.

I found the solution by convincing all my friends and family, one by one, to move to Signal. I still use Whatsapp for people who did not migrate, but it's surprisingly possible (if not easy) to convince people to use another app

I moved my family over to Signal years ago.

Anyone new who wants to message me, I simply say "I'm on Signal" and if it's important enough, they go and install it; it's been fairly frictionless, after all how hard is it to download an app and go through the fairly minimal registration process; and for someone already using WhatsApp, "one more account" probably isn't a major concern.

I tried various steps in the past to retain access to WhatsApp for a couple of people who didn't move, by having a work account on my phone, with a second SIM, but a one-click mistake one time gave WhatsApp my entire contact list from the "Personal" sandbox account, and I've decided not to even bother again.

For me the "one more account" is really a problem. WhatsApp is the standard messenger in most of the EU.

And I don't want to go to signal because it's only marginally better. It's still American and still a walled garden (no third party apps allowed, no federation). It's a slightly less smelly walled garden.

I don't get this. Everyone is used to juggling between multiple apps, many of which allow to send messages. People are fine talking over Discord AND WhatsApp AND three others, but somehow "it's unbearable to add Signal". And it's not exactly "yet another app", it's pretty much a clone of WhatsApp. So if everybody moved to Signal, we could just get rid of WhatsApp. Which gets us to your second point:

> And I don't want to go to signal because it's only marginally better. It's still American and still a walled garden (no third party apps allowed, no federation). It's a slightly less smelly walled garden.

This, to me, is downright irrational. "Less smelly" is better, especially if it takes zero effort (you don't even need to create an account with a password, it just sends you an SMS).

If there was a non-American alternative to Signal, surely I would go for it. But there isn't. In the meantime, Signal is by far the best alternative to WhatsApp in terms of privacy.

Not to mention that there is actually a valid reason to not allow third party apps (spoiler: security). Last time I heard a fork of Signal making the news, it was pretty bad.

This is not about Signal. This about being spread too thin. To be able to keep up with all the work projects I'm involved in, I need to use Slack, Discord, Matrix at the same time. Add WhatsApp on top of that. That's 4, but not all. Add e-mail and ordinary phone calls.

6 methods to just keep up with work. I also have at least three ways to reach required documents and meeting notes. I really don't want to jump like a platformer character from point to point to be able to communicate and get things done.

In my personal life, I prefer "1 task, 1 application" model. Communications, one application. Personal information storage? Everything in one place, etc.

Application hopping has a very big mental overhead, and kills my flow. Many colleagues are in the same boat.

It's not Signal, it's any app, account, for any reason.