[Abishek_Muthian]

Steps, I've taken in order.

0. Removing myself from all active WhatsApp groups.

1. Setting the WhatsApp status to 'Message me on Signal or Email me' and not responding to non-important messages till they message on Signal or Email me.

2. When someone asks if we can continue our conversation on WhatsApp, politely informing them that I don't use WhatsApp and asking them to message on Signal.

3. Setting a Tasker auto reply for WhatsApp, informing the sender that I'm not available on WhatsApp and they have to message me on Signal or Email me.

3.a. Updated the reply message with 'My WhatsApp account will be deleted on Feb 8 for not accepting new T&C' and has set the status as such too.

4.Setting Signal as the default SMS client (Can invite people easily via SMS, perhaps added protection against SMS exploits).

[selfhoster11]

Uprooting and going away with no warning, and then refusing to communicate unless it's not from an old platform sounds is a perfect recipe for being seen as awfully arrogant.

The issue here is that it's a sudden approach. Humans are creatures of habit, and shifting interpersonal relationships slowly matters. This is not an API migration to a new provider where you push a commit or two and it's done. If you explain why, then the other person may even sympathise. If you don't, you will be seen as unreasonable and puritanical.

[Abishek_Muthian]

Hence I included 'Politely', I should have also included I've been doing this for ~ 2 years.

My primary mode of communication is email, 100% for professional communication. Yes, there are people who are offended when I impose such communication criteria and I've lost business opportunities.

But thoughtful communications due to non-real-time nature of email has qualitatively increased and not having to touch the phone often has resulted in better physical and mental health(the whole reason for me making these major changes in first place)[1].

[1]https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25619584 (Related comment on another thread with more details and a good counter opinion).

[boogies]

To me it seems to be being somewhat intolerant. Which is a powerful way for minorities to effect change. https://medium.com/incerto/the-most-intolerant-wins-the-dict...

[lotsofpulp]

The crucial part of that whole post is this caveat:

>Second, the cost structure matters quite a bit. It happens in our first example that making lemonade compliant with Kosher laws doesn’t change the price by much, not enough to justify inventories.

Might makes right. Being intolerant AND either needing little economic/physical power, or bringing with you significant economic/physical power is what effects change.

Which is the problem with convincing people to switch apps. Either you are important enough to the person that needs to switch apps, or switching the app is so low cost that the person that needs to switch doesn't care. Unfortunately, the switching costs is usually too high for most people's tastes.

[boogies]

> Either you are important enough to the person that needs to switch apps, or switching the app is so low cost that the person that needs to switch doesn't care. Unfortunately, the switching costs is usually too high for most people's tastes.

Or a mixture. In the case of eg. Matrix or IRC, the cost can be tapping a link and typing a couple things into the browser. That’s probably not low enough for most people to do for everyone they’re in any group chat with, but I think it’s reasonable to do for a family member (my immediate and extended family were willing to do that with Jitsi Meet for me), and most people have a few family members, including enough techy people to make a difference and plant seeds for some change.

[crazydoggers]

How is it arrogant to dictate personal boundaries? If your not comfortable using a messaging app, you don’t have to use it.

Why are you suggesting that everyone needs to bow to peer pressure or they’re arrogant?

If I suddenly decide one day I don’t want to drink alcohol but all my friends do, if they see me as arrogant because of that, that’s their problem, not mine. I’m under no obligation to slowly stop drinking because of them.

[ska]

It isn't arrogant but it is unilateral, which can always be a problem when it involves others. It's not always avoidable but if you are the one making unilateral changes you may end up bearing costs also, or needed to do extra to facilitate the change.

If you suddenly decide to stop drinking, it's not arrogant and I would hope your friends would be supportive.

Arrogant would be expecting them to all stop going to the bar because you don't want go anymore.

[crazydoggers]

Yes... just like I would hope others would be supportive of my choice of communication. No matter what, it’s definitely not arrogant.

And in fact if more people had the courage to buck the trends and potential be “isolated” then we wouldn’t be ceding so much of our privacy to these social media companies as we are now.

A phone call always works, no matter where in the world you are. We don’t actually “need” these services, as much as they would like us to believe so.

[ska]

The "bar-like" scenario here is that they retain a whatsapp group chat that you are no longer in, and so you miss some stuff.

If you act unilaterally in a group context you should accept that too. Supporting your choice of communication only really extends to "oh yeah, crazydoggers isn't here now where did I put that app they use?". So you might hear from them less, but nobody is at fault.

[fsflover]

> but nobody is at fault.

Facebook is.

[amelius]

You are right. But this is how you get yourself isolated.

[cassianoleal]

That's the reason why I put off quitting Facebook for years.

I have done that a few years ago though, and neither I'm isolated nor I feel like I've lost anything meaningful.

I'm still in touch with my dear friends and family, and that will continue without WhatsApp.

[spidersouris]

Some people just don't have the choice. My university class group depends on Messenger, several family members and friends do too. It may be easier to incite individual people to change messaging services, but when it comes to groups or common social connections, it becomes quite difficult. I can't ask everyone in a group to stop using Messenger just because I don't want to, and neither can I ask my family to contact me solely on Telegram or Signal if other family members refuse to switch. Having everything at the same place is so convenient for most people that it's nearly impossible to provoke this kind of change.

[godelski]

You don't ask everyone. You try to build momentum. Get the nerds, geeks, and people that like to feel like they are special for using tech. You get these people because the privacy features. They are the easy grabs. Then one by one you form groups with those people and a few outsiders. You get these people because there's no meaningful usability difference between apps. At some point you have critical mass and getting others is fairly trivial. "We're all talking over here, just come on. It is easier." You get these people because of network effect.

You can't expect everyone to switch all at once. If you really want to get people on the app you have to be smarter about how you get people there.

[crazydoggers]

You always have a choice. Belief that you don’t is the falsehood. If someone needs to communicate with you or you need with them, there are many ways.

The world functioned fine before Messenger.

Pick up a phone, or for that matter talk to people in person. It’s not rocket science.

[millibar]

I like this. Didn't realise it was possible to set up auto responders on WhatsApp via Tasker.

Thanks for this :-)

[superkitty]

Interesting..What is Tasker? Do I need to download and configure it on the phone device?

[ksd482]

Pretty sure nothing like this exists in ios. Apple won’t allow it so it must be an android app.

Edit: https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=net.dinglisch....

So Android has this app and it allows your to automate sms among other things.

[tkinom]

Do we need a webbrowser base proxy for WhatsApp to Signal (and other chat platforms)?

Run it on webbrowser at home / cloud instance and proxy msgs but drop all FB trackings?

Any pro/con to this approach?

[Abishek_Muthian]

If you are ready to put in a separate instance to handle WhatsApp, then a separate mobile with Tasker to forward the WhatsApp message to email or other client is the easiest thing to do.

If not separate hardware, Android VM or Anbox would theoretically work but would be of more hassle considering WhatsApp actively detects 3rd party ROMS and android VMs/Anbox are not generally stable.

[domano]

Back in the day Signal (i think it was named differently too back then) could encrypt SMS.

After they removed it due to lack of active users i gave them a bad rating on the play store only to return because i dropped my mistrust of them as a middleman.

[mister_hn]

I would be careful with 4a.

Setting it as default SMS client prevents to get 2FA tokens from applications like Amazon, Dropbox, Paypal, or at least, they come with a huge delay.

[Abishek_Muthian]

How come? SMS client functions independent of the GSM stack, I haven't faced any issues due to Signal being the SMS client for several years now.

[mister_hn]

As I switched back to the default SMS app, "magically" all the 2FA tokens are delivered in less than 10 seconds.