Hey there! I am using WhatsApp (again)
This year the tech world was greeted by an “evil” update to a Terms and Conditions by a not-so strange company. Which one? WhatsApp...well, in a way Facebook as it owns the service. The new update to their service now locks down its users and forcibly enrolls them into sharing their data with the parent company. This didn’t go down well with the public especially since the update was to go into effect in selected regions like India and Brazil. The anger led many users to just abandon the platform and look elsewhere. But where? WhatsApp has now become the de facto form of communication for people worldwide. The only folks still sticking with the age-old SMS are either those who are old and struggle to keep up with tech or the ones who just cannot afford a smartphone. The agony for WhatsApp meant a golden opportunity for another similar service, Signal. Ironically, this was established by one of the co-founders of WhatsApp a decade ago. And so, I took the plunge and deleted my WhatsApp account, and joined Signal. How was the experience? Well...
Things were nearly straightforward on Signal with the usual sign-up process where you just provide your cellphone number and the whole procedure went easy. Then came the unreal realization where I was thrown reality to my face. There is absolutely nobody on my contacts list! Still, I took the chance to scroll through the menu and see what the app had to offer and most of them were similar to WhatsApp but still it lacked the polish or the funky features that many would prefer. Not to be disheartened, I decided to continue using it and somehow convinced a bunch of friends to give it a try. Not a week had passed before I noticed that I was missing out on a lot of updates from my friend circle. One guy had got engaged and another was getting married, and I was the last one to know this! And predictably, the friends too messaged me on Signal saying that I am the only one on the app that they talk to and they wanted to remove the app to free up space. And let’s face it, I had to agree with them on it. With no point in hanging around and the app doing absolutely nothing, I had to revert back to WhatsApp.
So what’s the summary? Well, you can scream and raise your arms on all things privacy but like the age-old saying, “If you’re using a free service, you’re the product.” The way things stand as they are, as long as Facebook/WhatsApp has got the convenience factor going for them, I really can’t see any other app taking away the crown from them for being a true SMS replacement. Have you guys tried switching? How was your experience?