All these (ad)ons always take priority over performance.
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.
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.
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!
Verification cans :(
I already have a “do everything” app.
It is called the Operating System.
It sounds to me like they’re trying to go like Wechat did
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.
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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.
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.
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.
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.
Facebook is the best positioned by far, they just need a popular payment service
Well they tried, but they gave up before it even released.
Anyone remembering Libra?
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)
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.
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.
WA does have a desktop client. Fuck that though.
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.
Thanks to EU, you’ll be able to contact these people on WhatsApp without using WhatsApp.
That’s great to know!
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.
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”.
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.
Today, on “Features No One Asked For”.
*except nearly the entirety of India, but who cares about a country with nearly a billion customers
Meta adding the same features to all their apps, for whatever reason
Everybody wants to be We Chat.
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.
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.
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.
The maturity of decentralized communication cannot come soon enough
If only there was a standards-based platform that everyone could use, supported by all telecommunications providers. Ah dammit. Probably just a pipe dream. /s
XMPP should return to reclaim its rightful role.
Back in my day, the only decentralized communication we needed was yelling from the rooftops and we turned out just fine!
During the peak of Whatsapp Controversy, I had 50 out 450+ contacts on Signal. Now it is just 5 people.
Signal shot it’s self in the foot removing sms capabilities. Tragic.
No one I know use SMS for chat. The last SMS I had sent was 3 years 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.
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.
as much as the next guy on the fediverse* not everyone uses Lemmy
This is lemmy, live with it
Sure
as much as the next person* not everyone is a guy
As much as the next entity* some of us are AI
THEY’RE NOT SUPPOSED TO KNOW THAT!
Why do you reply to me and not the original commenter lol
Don’t use WhatsApp or Telegram. There are better things to use. (Signal, Session and simplex chat)
lol. "Don’t use the messaging apps used by all your friends and family. Use another app so you cant contact them. "
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.
This is pretty much the only thing stopping me from using another app
Imagine being required to have the same app as your friend to send a message.
Then get them on a different app. Be a leader not a follower
Wire…?
Wire has pretty much proven it’ll never gain traction.
I want out but no one in my group chats will leave. 😭
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.
Are there any WhatsApp clients without all the crap noone asking for?
There soon will be because EUR turned their arm into opening the chat protocol. As soon as that happens expect other chats to be able to talk to whatsapp without the oficial app. So hopefully… Soon.
That EU proposal is definitely not good. I don’t know what you’ve read but it practice it will require to ban all open source chat applications https://mullvad.net/en/blog/2023/2/1/eu-chat-control-law-will-ban-open-source-operating-systems/
What you’re linking to is about their proposition of chat control for CSAM scanning, which is a completely separate thing from the Digital Markets Act that will force big Messengers to become interoperable.
you’re actually right. I had merged these 2 in my head because of the other issue that arises from this requirement which will affect the security of the apps, especially in apps that work with e2e encryption. e2e interoperability is kinda impossible to be implemented especially in the current deadlines. You can read more about it here https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2022/04/eu-digital-markets-acts-interoperability-rule-addresses-important-need-raises
If only there were good, open standards everyone could use, right?
lmao, no no, the proprietary standards that one company uses are much better than the proprietary standards of their competitor. Everyone knows that!
I read an article about. Here is another one. Doesn’t seem to mention any of the effects on Foss software so I might be out of the loop.
Check out Beeper https://beeper.com/
Beeper
Great 90,000th or so on the waiting list.
Thanks I will take a look. It looks kind of similar to matrix
Yeah very similar to Matrix or the good days of Trillian
The software enshittification cycle continues.
I was recently in Brazil and it amazes me how the country adopted the platform. You can do everything in it. And it’s not that you’re always talking to someone on the other side. It’s all automated. Remember those gigantic labyrinths of menus you had to listen when calling a business? Now it’s all in WhatsApp, but with the advantage of being much faster to read. I asked for a service in a company, they gave me a protocol number. When I wanted to check on it, I just had to type the number on WhatsApp and it would tell me if it was ready. So, no need to develop GUI, sites, and so on. Everything is accessible through WhatsApp.
So, I understand why Meta rolled this out and started with Brazil.
In the end, it feels like we made full circle and we’re coming back to the Telnet era of doing business.
