Facebook has such a network: WhatsApp. In the US apparently not that omnipresent, but it's everywhere in many countries. Facebook has the data, and knows exactly how such closed-networks are in demand, can (not) be monetized and what features are needed to make them grow.
In e.g. The Netherlands anything from your neighborhood-watch to parents-info, or anything related to school, via business-groups, your bachelors party, to the weekly scissors-collectors-club-coffee-meet . All of these organize, inform, discuss, on WhatsApp.
Yes, I use WhatsApp, my family uses WhatsApp, my wife's family uses WhatsApp. I found it to be an incredibly effective tool and was a really big fan of Jan Koum and Brian Acton pre-sale to Facebook. And now, I wonder how to replace it. Signal did not become a replacement, if anything it's not that great because user friendliness trumps everything else. Networks are sticky and shifting a network is a damn near impossible task, but then people are using WhatsApp over Facebook Messenger or SMS, so I guess the question is, how do you create another shift? I'm personally developing more and more conviction around the idea of doing something that first tries to tackle this on a personal level before doing it for others e.g How do I get my family off WhatsApp. Well, I might need to run the equivalent as a private server or I might need a way to bridge the chat to pull them over. I might need some sort of really key collaborative feature also.
I definitely think there's a sort of missing tool for family, friends and community. One that's totally private. Maybe like an open source facebook groups. But hosting is a must because no one wants to run it, we just want to know its open source, vetted and we can guarantee it's private. Where Signal was for 1:1 text on Mobile, I think something else could be community first.
> I'm personally developing more and more conviction around the idea of doing something that first tries to tackle this on a personal level before doing it for others e.g How do I get my family off WhatsApp.
You are on the right track, but I would say we don't need even need to get them "off" WhatsApp, we just need to get an intolerant minority [0] who refuses to compromise.
I deleted WhatsApp from my phone and told my close friends and family "For reasons X, Y and Z, I don't want to use Facebook products anymore. If you want to reach me, I am using Matrix. I can add you to my communick account [1] and I can help you set up your client. I know that this is an inconvenience but I think we should all revise our priorities and stop putting "convenience" above all else.
Some of them did. Some of them didn't, so they call me on the phone, or send me an email. A few of them even started to use Matrix as their primary method for communication. The important thing is that my refusal to use WhatsApp made the set "people who use only WhatsApp" set a bit smaller and the "people who could transition away from WhatsApp" set a lot larger.
Thanks for sharing that sentiment. I don't quite take the same view on it but understand the approach can be effective. I stopped using slack at some point and it meant I did not speak to the specific group of friends who only communicated through slack. It turned out to be a so-so thing. In some ways I don't know whether it had more negative or positive impact. By taking a stance on it, maybe it was only detrimental to myself or beneficial, whichever way you see it.
On the family front, there's a WhatsApp group and people have learned to use it for that activity, so I can't see that behaviour changing especially when 60+ year olds are in it too. It just became the defacto mode of communication somehow. Yet funnily 10 years ago, I was not a WhatsApp user. A friend of mine dragged me on there. It reminds me of 2006 when people kept asking "Are you on Facebook", like a bunch of drug addicts.
I personally want to move some of my private content and conversations off public servers and on to one I control. Off public networks and on one I know I've secured. That to me as an engineer now makes a lot of sense. But there's also a significant burden to that and I don't think anyone else can do it. Also I don't imagine anyone will setup VPN across my extended family. So there's some things to think through before trying anything.
> so I can't see that behaviour changing especially when 60+ year olds are in it too
Both my parents are getting closer to their 70's, I got both of them to use Element. Yes, they are still on WhatsApp, yes they would prefer if I used it as well and my grumpy old man always complains about the many quirks from Element's UI on iOS. But at the end of they day we still talk frequently, they still get to see their grandkids, we still have a group to share photos and videos, etc.
The important point that I want to drive home: even if they are still using some other app, my refusal to join has made them aware and able to adopt an alternative.
> I personally want to move some of my private content and conversations off public servers and on to one I control.
As long as you are using
(a) your own domain to keep control of your identity
(b) something based on open standards so that you can port different providers
(c)end-to-end encryption
does it really matter if you are running the service?
My girlfriend is Brazilian and she uses WhatsApp a...lot...
I would say the problem with this idea is that your family is often just one group chat. She has maybe 50 threads of different groups in WA, for her moving off WA would be near impossible not because all the groups she communicates with are on there. The other thing to keep in mind is, the "HN Crowd" knows the full implications of having conversations on WA, for just about everyone else they just see a really convenient app that works extremely well. After using it I concluded that it works better than the native iMessage app on your iPhone, which just speaks to how good the app is (in terms of being an app).
The argument to move people to another app is really uphill battle because it's purely ideological/data privacy/etc related. I could easily convince someone to move to Slack from Teams because Teams sucks as an app. But the issue with WhatsApp is that as an app, it's one of the most well build and best performing.
This is the thing. WhatsApp works really well. And so did Facebook groups. I think once communities are established they stay where they are. So anything new is for new usecases. Trying to get people to migrate isn't the answer. It's about new solutions or habits solving specific purposes. For me it's a lot to do with the fact that each chat itself in whatsapp isn't threaded. You can create communities but that's not right for informal stuff and then I can create separate groups but then it gets confusing. So actually you need topic based chat. Ability to create new topics in the same groups. Basically slack or discord for family and friends.
Sorry, but your whole argument is just a basic rehash of all the standard excuses that people give themselves to avoid having to make difficult choices and just sticking with the status quo.
There is nothing "impossible" about leaving Whatsapp. I'm also from Brazil, I also had the "family chat group". My cousins are still my cousins after I left the group. I can still talk with them through in person, on the phone, email, SMS. The fact that some of them don't want to join Matrix is not a deal breaker, just like my refusal to be on WhatsApp should not be a deal breaker for them.
>deleted WhatsApp from my phone and told my close friends and family "For reasons X, Y and Z, I don't want to use Facebook products anymore. If you want to reach me, I am using Matrix. I can add you to my communick account [1] and I can help you set up your client. I know that this is an inconvenience but I think we should all revise our priorities and stop putting "convenience" above all else
I'm assuming you're social life has suffered?
This is the problem via the lack of universal messaging standards... I am looking at you Apple..
I wonder what percentage of your friends and family dropped off?
I ran a similar experiment to you and found it really really difficult as almost 90+% didn't want to deal with the hassle of using a different application.
Please read Taleb's article that I posted. What you are describing is exactly the idea of using the principle of "intolerant minority" to effect change in the majority behavior.
> 90+% didn't want to deal with the hassle of using a different application.
On the positive side, this means that 10% of your friends are willing to try a different application to keep connecting with you. This means that if we take Dunbar's number (150) as the average size of a social circle, every person that refuses to join WhatsApp leads to 15 other people getting acquainted to an alternative network. Any network that managed to capture 10% of WhatsApp userbase would be more than sustainable, and if you imagine that as soon as secondary effects kick-in, the friction will get lower and lower.
> I wonder what percentage of your friends and family dropped off?
Dropped off from casual conversation? A good part. They are still friends, though. I can pick up the phone and call them, or send them an email like people used to less than a generation ago...
If your friends/peers can not accept personal change or let it affect your relationship, then you are dealing with shitty friends to begin with.
What I’ve found to work is taking it one family member at a time. And do it in person, get them to commit to using it. Then ask if you can set it up for them, show them how it works. Join them into the group chat, and then at least you’ve removed the friction to joining.
Why is this downvoted? Telegram is IMO the best alternative to WhatsApp.
It has a much better UX than Signal, more desirable features, not to mention more users and channels. There is an on-demand E2E encryption for those who want it. Pavel Durov is not on a friendly terms with Russian govt now for those who care about it. You can pay for the service to support the company, get rid of ads and gain some meaningless features.
E2E is only available as a one-to-one, not a group. It must also be switched on for every chat. Part of the allure of E2E is that an individual who needs it (say, a reporter) is indistinguishable from those that don’t (the general public), and those that are best blending into the crowd (like an anonymous source).
There are other failure modes here (who speaks to whom isn’t necessarily hidden, just the text), but it’s a better starting point than “on-demand e2e for those that want it”.
I disagree on the UX. It is overly complicated, with all kinds of hidden gestures and unintuitive ways of doing things.
Just the other day i was trying to share another user with my wife and just couldn't figure it out. I think there were some hidden privacy settings for that user that i wasn't aware of.
It's still centralized. The server is not open source. The "on-demand E2E encryption" has never been properly audited by independent parties. We shouldn't need to worry or care about the political affiliations of the company offering a product to be able to use it.
Most of the (sane) parents that I know hate those WhatsApp groups with a passion, but they unfortunately have to be there "because there's where the future of our kids gets decided" or some such, meaning where everything related to the kids' school or kindergarten is now discussed.
I agree though about the cultural influence of WhatsApp outside of the US, as what you described about it matches my experience about its use here in Romania.
In e.g. The Netherlands anything from your neighborhood-watch to parents-info, or anything related to school, via business-groups, your bachelors party, to the weekly scissors-collectors-club-coffee-meet . All of these organize, inform, discuss, on WhatsApp.