All these (ad)ons always take priority over performance.

  • @[email protected]
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    2379 months ago

    Am I the only one who doesn’t want any, “do everything,” apps? I’d rather have 10 apps that each do one thing really well than have one app that haphazardly attempts to do 10 things.

    • Kalkaline
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      1209 months ago

      At some point we’re just back to building web browsers with spyware built in.

      • newIdentity
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        289 months ago

        Sooner or later there will be an API to build your own apps and systems. Then we just rebuild a webbrower, but made it worse

    • Neato
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      9 months ago

      I see you are rebelling against Web 2.0, where you only need 3-4 apps or sites to do everything! Don’t be afraid. The old days of dozens of sites is gone and now the oligarchy of megacorps will take care of you with your 2-3 apps. You’ll have fewer apps that could go wrong and you’ll ever need to keep up with your 1-2 apps! Eventually the FTC will see the error of their ways and your One App will truly simplify your life!

    • @[email protected]
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      319 months ago

      Make each program do one thing well. To do a new job, build afresh rather than complicate old programs by adding new “features”.

      Unix philosophy. 50 years old idea. Imo devs would love to work that way but they are never the ones making decisions. And every CEO wants to have the new everything app ala wechat.

    • Flying Squid
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      39 months ago

      If I want to shop for something online, I’ll go to a website like Amazon.

      If I want to transfer money online, I’ll go to a website like PayPal.

      I don’t like the monopolizing those companies are doing, but they’re at least more transparent than doing it through a chat app. Can you even do returns for chat app purchases? I did a return with Amazon the other day and they just credited my account. They didn’t even ask for the book (I accidentally bought 2 copies) back.

    • @[email protected]
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      399 months ago

      Better than Twitter, but still not great.

      Anyone trying to reproduce WeChat in the west is insane. Nobody needs it. Nobody wants it. The conditions that allowed it to take off in China do not exist in the west.

      The only company with a real chance of success is Apple, and their business model is a little more resistant to such corruption, at least for now.

      • @[email protected]
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        379 months ago

        The rabid duopolist that doesn’t even allow users to install whatever apps they want on their devices? The one that doesn’t even allow alternative browser engines? The one that outright refuses to use any and all open standards or to allow interoperability unless forced by governments? They might be one the worst companies in the world to do it.

        • @[email protected]
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          209 months ago

          Yeah. Apple basically has a captive market. Not to the extent of WeChat, but more than other western players.

          The fact that Apple makes their money (mostly) on hardware sales, subscriptions, and their big-ass cut of App Store sales, instead of advertising like Google and Facebook, is why they are not likely to pull this crap in the near future. They don’t need to.

          The online advertising ship is sinking, and Facebook is a rat desperately trying to find a way off.

          • @[email protected]
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            79 months ago

            Capitalists/fascists don’t need to do the things they do. They do them still. We don’t need yearly growth in markets or profits. Line doesn’t need to go up. And if you express those facts as an officer of a publicly traded company. You will be quickly unemployed.

            If apple sees those possible profits out there, just within reach. They will 100% go for it. Whether or not they need to.

        • newIdentity
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          9 months ago

          Well they tried, but they gave up before it even released.

          Anyone remembering Libra?

    • DasherPack
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      39 months ago

      Here in Spain everyone uses whatsapp. I clearly see people buying products through the app from local businesses. I don’t necessarily like it, but it has high chance of being successful (not like channels, which will for sure be discontinued)

  • Neptune
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    679 months ago

    WhatsApp is a shithole. Communities, Channels, Payments, Avatars all these destroyed the simple chat app. Meta is aiming for a monopoly here.

    Signal and Telegram pretty much useless if you don’t have your needful people on the platform.

    • @[email protected]
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      139 months ago

      Thankfully I don’t have people I need on WhatsApp, but it took some convincing.

      Nowadays I only have dentist and barbershop on WhatsApp, all my folks are on Telegram, including all work communications.

      WhatsApp was always lacking features; WhatsApp web can’t replace a full featured desktop client which is a must have for me; and its mobile client is inconvenient in every possible way.

      • LUHG
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        49 months ago

        WA does have a desktop client. Fuck that though.

          • @[email protected]
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            59 months ago

            It’s worse now, it’s an all out react native app, I believe. On windows, it’s hideous. Simple things such as sending attachments become a multiple-seconds-long waiting game; by the time I’m able to send a screenshot, my phone link has already transfered the clipboard from my pc to my phone, I have unlocked it and opened WhatsApp and sent the attachment through android instead. This has happened to me more times than I care to count.

            There’s also this nasty input focus bug, where you sometimes have to tab out of the app entirely and tab back in for it to detect focus on textboxes.

            Its like they’re intently taking steps back on WhatsApp as a whole, kind of reminiscent of Skype’s fall from grace.

            • @[email protected]
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              29 months ago

              WhatsApp actually uses the native UI frameworks of each operating system on all major platforms now, meaning whatever the latest Windows UI framework is called and Swift UI on macOS. Their mobile apps natively use Material on Android and Swift UI on iOS respectively, and always have been.

              I actually think it’s great. One of the few service-based multi-platform apps that actually has native clients on all platforms as opposed to Electron apps or React “native” or whatever. It does this better than pretty much any other messenger (Telegram, Signal etc. on desktop are all Electron apps or similar).

              I’ll bail out if (or inevitably when) they add more and more bloat (like channels or this shopping stuff for example).

          • Neptune
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            19 months ago

            Fr! only reason why I prefer the webapp over client

    • @[email protected]
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      89 months ago

      It’s just not a battle I am willing to fight. Too many people I can’t contact without Whatsapp and none of them willing to swap.

  • Synapse
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    649 months ago

    Great, I can’t wait for Whatsapp to be the only way to reach customer support and make payments. I always felt the confused look of people when I tell them I don’t have Whatsapp wasn’t enough.

    • @[email protected]
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      109 months ago

      always felt the confused look of people when I tell them I don’t have Whatsapp wasn’t enough.

      the worst part is that most people cannot fathom that you don’t have Whatsapp and you want to continue not having. The confused look is because their way of thinking is “ok you don’t have, so what, open an account, it’s taking 10 seconds”.

      • @[email protected]
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        15 months ago

        When contractors try to get me to communicate with them on what’s appropriate, I am happy to tell them that it’s forbidden on company devices.

        Typically that conversation started on email, which they don’t want to continue using for reasons they usually can’t explain well.

    • Fontasia
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      09 months ago

      *except nearly the entirety of India, but who cares about a country with nearly a billion customers

    • @[email protected]
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      299 months ago

      If only people cared. Sadly, they don’t.

      Source: am one of probably three people in the country that refuse to use Meta CRAPWARE. And thus, very lonely.

      • @[email protected]
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        9 months ago

        Some folk do. I’ve managed to convince at least 10 of my friends and family to install Signal and/or Threema.

        • HidingCat
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          49 months ago

          It’s not just friends; I cannot do my work in my past three jobs without WhatsApp, because that’s how ingrained it is. And they were varied jobs too.

          Client interactions? WhatsApp
          External stakeholders? WhatsApp
          Public enquiries? WhatsApp

          No WhatsApp, no job, no income. That’s how ingrained it is.

        • Dariusmiles2123
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          29 months ago

          Me too and we’re very happy with it.

          Even my employer is making us only use Threema work.

    • @[email protected]
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      59 months ago

      Do you think 99% of the grannies and non-techies care? I support Signal and use it myself to communicate (with the 2-3 other people that use it…), but it’s not comparable with WhatsApp or Telegram which everyone has. It’s shitty but it’s reality. People even use Facebook Messenger over Signal.

      Threema at 6€ is not really a good option for anyone anymore, a least not over Signal. Also they had an encryption obfuscation problem recently, read the longer comments at the bottom here and decide for yourself:

      https://reddit.com/r/privacy/s/edgSH00aCu

      • @[email protected]
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        59 months ago

        I know people who prefer Threema simply because they know what their revenue model is. Everyday I find that another person in my contacts has joined Signal. I don’t communicate with too many grannies besides my own two, both of whom have Signal installed on their phones ftr. My circle clearly isn’t your circle.

  • @[email protected]
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    389 months ago

    I feel like FOSS apps keep getting more viable while closed source apps keep getting worse. I feel like the next version of the internet is the one few know about. Even Mastodon is getting better, and Lemmy is pretty much a reddit equivalent now.

    • @[email protected]
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      129 months ago

      Because with nonlibre/nonfree/closed apps, user interest is never at the front. It is only considered at the beginning when apps need to gain userbase, then they can exploit it.

      Every app that take away user ability to inspect, modify or share it is creating a path for abuse.

      • @[email protected]
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        239 months ago

        And WeChat sucks. The only reason it dominates in China is because the government mandated a bunch of social control stuff to run there making it virtually mandatory just to exist in China.

        • @[email protected]
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          179 months ago

          Western VCs wished they could have their shitty app being mandatory.

          Look at El Musk and his “X app” obsession. He wants it so bad he burned the brand he paid BILLIONS to acquire just to chase his everything app.

          • @[email protected]
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            19 months ago

            I think part of his plan was to quickly roll crypto into it… but then by the time he actually acquired it Crypto took a huge downturn.

  • @[email protected]
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    289 months ago

    It’s a little hard to imagine for us Americans, but internationally WhatsApp has a thriving unofficial ecosystem of businesses operating solely out of the chat app.

    I love to hate on Meta as much as the next guy on Lemmy, but this is probably one of the sounder business decisions Meta has made in awhile.

  • @[email protected]
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    279 months ago

    During the peak of Whatsapp Controversy, I had 50 out 450+ contacts on Signal. Now it is just 5 people.

      • @[email protected]
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        149 months ago

        This is US defaultism. People doesn’t care about sms capabilities outside the US. The US isn’t a huge market for Signal.

        • @[email protected]
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          109 months ago

          I think it did effect things. SMS is weirdly popular in the US (i think it’s might be cause they didn’t use it much in the 90s?) but people I know in France and UK still use texts for some things, even if messaging apps are where most of communication happens (French people even use mms which is insane).

          I know that I managed to convince a number of tech-shy people (including parents) to get Signal by telling them replaced their sms app, so it wasn’t a whole extra app / network they needed to use. It was great for me because I could ditch WhatsApp completely. But when signal stopped supporting sms they went back to just whatsapping and texting, so I cracked and reinstalled WhatsApp to keep in touch with them.

        • @[email protected]
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          29 months ago

          I only use SMS for some communication because the only other form of communication my phone can do is calls. But I have to be careful with that because they’re paid and not unlimited.

    • @[email protected]
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      39 months ago

      Mostly because of the 400+ who remained on WhatsApp, the 45 of 50 decided to move back and the 5 probably are running both apps

      • @[email protected]
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        True. They stick to WhatsApp as all th convo goes there and it laziness to switch over, copy data and all .

        Srsly I hope people will start installing Signal once again.

  • Possibly linux
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    259 months ago

    Don’t use WhatsApp or Telegram. There are better things to use. (Signal, Session and simplex chat)

    • @[email protected]
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      359 months ago

      lol. "Don’t use the messaging apps used by all your friends and family. Use another app so you cant contact them. "

      • @[email protected]
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        119 months ago

        Man, messaging is a nightmare. I use signal with a few of my closest contacts, whatsapp with most other people, sms as a fallback and for work I have to occasionally use Teams and fucking Viber (ugh). At least I managed to liberate myself from the clutches of Slack.

        If only there was some standard way to get these apps to talk to each other so everybody could use what they want. Oh wait, there was, it was called XMPP, it worked perfectly and big tech fucking killed it and replaced it with the irritating clusterfuck that is the current status quo.

        • @[email protected]
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          19 months ago

          Matrix with Bridges does help a lot, though. Alternatively Beeper. (Which is Matrix with Bridges)

    • @[email protected]
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      119 months ago

      Sure, I use Signal with some. But I will have to use WhatsApp to interact with most people. They won’t switch just because I tell them to.

      • @[email protected]
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        59 months ago

        Luckily they don’t have to switch. Your good friends from the European union have a solution for you (And the latest beta for whatsapp features the skeleton for their implementation of that standard)

  • @[email protected]
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    199 months ago

    Good. Keep cluttering the app until people move to simpler alternatives. Preferably libre.

    • Veloxization
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      79 months ago

      What I did was say I’m deleting my WhatsApp account in [insert sensible time] and if anyone wants to contact me, to use Signal. Lost contact to some, but many followed.

  • @[email protected]
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    149 months ago

    At the company’s global Conversations event in Mumbai, WhatsApp introduced an in-app shopping feature for merchants and customers. Dubbed ”Flows,” […]

    That name sounds more like a feminine hygiene product than a shopping platform.