[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.

[cassianoleal]

> You always have a choice.

I agree with this statement. It's always a matter of priorities and perceived cost vs profit.

In any case, I never said it was going to work the same for everybody.

I have simply given my personal anecdote of how I used to believe that there would be a high social cost associated with closing those accounts, and in the end I found the opposite to be true.

I know of many other such anecdotes, but I also know of a few rare ones where the cost was too big and they decided to reopen said accounts.

As always, YMMV - but please don't spread the idea that it will be costly for everybody. It might just be that people feel better and find other ways to communicate, or it may be that they decide to rejoin such services.