[loremm]

Just because I'm interested in personal bots, doesn't whatsapp business have a (nominal, maybe) cost? I've been using telegram and they're amazingly bot friendly + free but I use whatsapp so much more

Does it feel like it works for small (and personal-use) players with buttons, callbacks, and the rest

[rahulg]

You're right. WhatsApp Business API has a cost (which varies depending on country and type of message the Business initiates). I'm hoping to recover the cost through monthly subscriptions.

[loremm]

And I think you can do more about E2E encrypting it. Or at least trying to. At some point, people don't want plaintext journals floating around stored permanently. Although I know it starts as cleartext on whatsapp's servers

[compootr]

> people don't want plaintext journals floating around stored permanently

this is facebook. they're data-mining pictures of your dog for money. I don't think privacy/safety is expectable with meta

[sangnoir]

> Although I know it starts as cleartext on whatsapp's servers

WhatsApp uses the Signal protocol[1], so the text is never plaintext on the wire (or servers).

1. https://signal.org/blog/whatsapp-complete/

[meiraleal]

Easy to say, very difficult to implement it right (and implementing it not right is diffcult AND useless). Also, let's be clear here, whatsapp E2EE is a joke.

[ylk]

> whatsapp E2EE is a joke

Could you please elaborate why (in detail)?

[jusepal]

My guess is since its closed source, no one beside them can verify that the supposedly e2e is even true, or exist in current latest binary. Sort of telling everyone that I've got a mountain of gold inside my house but the door is locked, no one beside me could verify my claim. Security and/or privacy via obscurity is moot.

[ylk]

You can always go ahead and decompile the apps and then show everyone that they’re in fact lying, that story would be huge. That alone doesn’t make it true, but there have so far not been hints of them pulling weird stuff with their e2ee, unlike telegram, for example. They’re even working on improving the default mode 99% of users use e2ee chat apps with - trust on first use (TOFU): https://engineering.fb.com/2023/04/13/security/whatsapp-key-...

They probably do all kinds of horrible stuff with the metadata. I’m honestly too lazy to read the privacy policy. But I have yet to see critique of their e2ee that’s actually backed up by substance instead of people’s imaginations.

[meiraleal]

They also handle and store users backup unencrypted by default so they have access to all messages in plaintext in multiple opportunities.

[grvdrm]

Yes - I would love that too. Please back that up?

[loremm]

Huh yeah that's good to hear. As a small note, on my personal bot I set up a simple journaling (and then just used google sheets as the backend!) includes a nominal 'rating' 1-10 so I can see how my mood fluctuates.

Especially if they do it every day/most days, having the option to see what you wrote "on this day" 2-3 years back is great. Especially when I try to include people's names who I was interacting with (but who are easy to forget 3 years later). It can be a nice reminder to text them and say you were "just randomly", unprompted, thinking about them -- 'How's it going?'

[rahulg]

I do agree that getting to read entries from your past is quite magical and has to be experienced to really understand it.

Fantastic that you've set it up for yourself.

[meiraleal]

Yes it is paid but there are good unofficial APIs (better than the official actually). The problem as you would expect is that they aren't highly reliable and losing messages is common.