[wink]

> Simply having an account there normalizes

It's long been normalized, Discord has already won. I'm not saying that it's great, but for certain communities you don't have a choice, besides not participating.

It's actually even worse than back then, when it was "everyone has WhatsApp" because you could easily contact the people otherwise, you already had their number. But imho personal conversations are not the draw for Discord, it's communities with semi-public spaces (public as in 100 people will read it, not "it's available to everyone").

[matheusmoreira]

Everyone having WhatsApp turned out to not be so bad. It has end-to-end encryption just like signal. Proven in courts.

[toastal]

There’s issue with metadata & the requirement of sharing one’s address book to use WhatsApp. I wouldn’t be surprised if it too like Signal required users have a Android/iOS primary device & a phone number or you can’t use the service which has privacy implications but also feeds the mobile OS duopoly as you can’t choose another OS (or to just not have a phone).

[matheusmoreira]

It does require a phone number. Alternative clients are banned by terms of service which means you can only choose the platforms they support which means iOS or Android.

[notpushkin]

You can use WhatsApp without sharing the address book by using wa.me links instead (e. g. wa.me/[phone]) to start chats. Still sucks though.

[tough]

Sounds like a nice idea for an app that just gets your contacts and makes the links nicely, like a whatsapp wrapper lmao

[wink]

I still know a ton of people who would've completely sworn off Facebook and Instagram, and only stayed because of WhatsApp.

[alickz]

It was already normal back in the day of IRC and webmasters