[blacklight]

My advice is to build such solutions around open products like Signal, XMPP or Matrix if possible. Or even Telegram.

On top of providing a better developer experience compared to Meta's ultra-locked and limited APIs, they aren't subject to the whims of a giant faceless company that can kill your product for no apparent reason with no chances of appeal.

Especially if you're doing these projects for folks in the developing world. Let's not lock them in proprietary American spyware like the whole West has already done :) from a user's perspective, if things are done properly, it'll just be a matter of installing another app.

And btw using a Matrix server with a WhatsApp bridge could also be a temporary solution to bypass the ban. But I haven't tested it with business accounts.

[lrvick]

Signal is a closed centrally controlled network that has a hard requirement on users to pay money to centrally controlled telco providers to get accounts making it impossible to be legally anonymous in most countries. It is also very unfriendly to custom clients or automation. In those regards it is no different from WhatsApp.

Matrix however is a great choice imo.

[Havoc]

I've never paid for signal?

[ta1243]

I suspect they are referring to how you need a phone number from a provider presumably linked to the ITU to sign up to signal?

[lrvick]

Correct

[DavidPiper]

I think you're ultimately correct, the trouble is the same as what advertisers discovered when they tried to do the same thing years ago.

Facebook owned the users. Similarly, WhatsApp owns the users.

The choice between:

1. Tying yourself to a platform that could boot you at any time, while also reaching all the users they already have

2. Bootstrapping something from scratch with 0 users, when all the users you want are already using said platform and have little incentive to leave

Choice 1 is often the only viable option, particularly if you're financially dependent on the results.

I also think we repeatedly see, even on HN, that "it'll just be a matter of installing another app" is actually a huge mental hurdle for many people - especially those who aren't technologically savvy enough to know how to use something that isn't Facebook/WhatsApp for communicating with people.

[scott_w]

This reminds me of a thread a few days ago where I pointed out a similar thing you’re saying here. I think you make a strong case that, in the business context, this tie in is mandatory.

It’s all well and good taking a principled stance on not using FB/WhatsApp/etc. While you’re doing that, your competitors are selling out, using them, and getting to your customers more easily than you are. They might get cut off but that’s tomorrow’s problem, while your problem is here and now.

[deafpolygon]

Choice #3 is to leverage every platform and work to educate your customers on how to reach them outside of any of these platforms.

[Sammi]

Buy a domain. Lead everyone to your domain.

[DavidPiper]

I don't disagree, but the words "leverage", "educate" and "lead" are doing a tremendous amount of heavy lifting.

Especially when your competition in leading, educating and leveraging is Meta.

[deafpolygon]

Indeed. If they are your customers, then it’s your job to work on effective communications. remember how we did it before the days of social media? It can be still be done- just learn the channels outside Facebook and establish points where the customers can reach you there. Make it painless and easy. That might mean managing your own support platform instead of using Facebooks for free.

[serial_dev]

While I don't enough about the problem domain and the app, "just don't use WhatsApp" is not necessarily helpful. The dev experience might be better, I dunno, but your product also needs users, and in my countries / communities, WhatsApp is the only thing they use, and meeting your users where they are is important.

Forcing your users to first install one more messaging app is going to cause people abandoning you immediately or slowly churn, which can make or break a product.

[closewith]

In many markets, avoiding WhatsApp if you need messaging kills your company on arrival.

[lrvick]

Then it sounds like the best business in those markets is to disrupt Whatsapp and educate users on the problems of relying on billionaires like Zuck for privacy.

[immibis]

If it's so easy, why haven't you done it yet?

[lrvick]

Nothing worth doing is easy. Personally I run my business without corpotech to do my own part.

[v7n]

WhatsApp has a critical advantage in Kenya from my experience: telecom operators such as Safaricom include quite generous WA bundles in their customers' subscriptions, allowing one to use it even though they would otherwise be out of credits. Being out of credits/airtime is not uncommon, since the economical bundles are sold as expiring in 24h/7d/30d.

[6510]

It's more generic than that. If you build on other peoples turf or your operation depends on others you risk everything on a change of terms or a service vanishing entirely. The company could be big, could be small.

One classic joke is buying your competitors supplier.