[mcjiggerlog]

> With the new WhatsApp interface mandated by the DMA, any BirdyChat user in the EEA will be able to start a chat with any WhatsApp user in the region simply by knowing their phone number.

Unfortunately, as it's been implemented as opt-in on WhatsApp's side, this isn't really true. Honestly that decision alone means it's kinda dead in the water.

[prmoustache]

> any WhatsApp user in the region

The regional limit makes it pretty much useless. The only reason I keep a whatsapp account is to stay in touch with my family in law and a few relatives who live in another continent.

[hei-lima]

In countries where SMS isn't as widespread as it is in the US, the use of WhatsApp is much more common.

I live in one of those countries, and I don't think I've ever had to use it to communicate with someone on another continent. I think most of its use is simply local, for your community or friend group.

The downside for me is basically the lack of appeal for a non-tech user (like my parents) to voluntarily want to stop using an app they've been using for, what, 10-12 years? It’s not that big of a deal; everyone uses Instagram or Facebook (maybe)... WhatsApp is definitely going to make the process difficult, too.

[thevillagechief]

Whatsapp is more popular in the US than you'd think. Probably due to a large immigrant population. I'm in several groups that use the channels feature to organize things like soccer, game nights etc. Most people with family abroad use Whatsapp, and that's a huge portion of the US.

[abustamam]

I belong to two Toastmasters groups. One is majority non-immigrant American/caucasian, one is majority immigrant (from India, Pakistan, etc). The first one does club communication primarily via email. The second does club communication exclusively thru WhatsApp.

It's an interesting divide.

I do have some Caucasian friends who use WhatsApp. One stopped using it when FB purchased it, which I can respect. Most people I know in the states though just use iMessage or signal.

[hei-lima]

It's surprising but makes a lot of sense

[stef25]

> SMS

Here in EU you pay for that. Soon as you send an image, you get charged extra. Completely useless compared to Whatsapp

[woodpanel]

Exactly. Here in Europe, SMS feels like the fax machine of mobile communications.

[franga2000]

Here in EU even the 5 €/month phone plans have unlimited SMS. As soon as you want to talk to someone without Whatsapp, you need to figure out which other apps they're on. Completely useless compared to SMS

Have you considered that the EU isn't one country?

[thedonncha]

In Ireland on my otherwise very generous mobile phone account I'm charged for multimedia SMS texts. They're not included in my SMS bundle.

[B1FIDO]

Multimedia "texts" are actually MMS. In fact, if you send more than 160 characters, those are also MMS because it's an extension of the SMS standard.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Multimedia_Messaging_Service

It is not unusual for there to be hosting or intermediate storage of images and other files, and from the phone you may tap a link or something to download/access that file, instead of having it automatically download and appear immediately, due to bandwidth and resource constraints.

[vladvasiliu]

In France, I'm "charged" for MMS, too. But that's actually considered "data", so it's deducted from the "internet" envelope which is quite generous (at least for my needs: I have multiple dozens of GB for under 10 € a month, of which I only ever went above 10 when backing up photos during a vacation with no wifi).

[hei-lima]

I'm not talking about the EU... That alone proves my point. SMS is/was more expensive worldwide.

[franga2000]

Yes, but there are also plenty of countries where mobile data or even smartphones aren't nearly as universal as they might be in the places where most people use whatsapp. There, people use mostly SMS and phone calls. Whatsapp and the like are the thing you use when SMS/calls would be too expensive, so international.

Both of these exist, as do middle grounds between them.

I'm in only one WhatsApp group with someone local, everyone else in my chats is from abroad. Yet I'm from a country with dirt cheap data and nearly universal smartphone ownership. People just don't use WA here for whatever reason. But drive an hour across the border and suddenly everyone is on WhatsApp.

[mbivert]

depends where; in France you can get unlimited SMS/MMS/calls, plus 350Go of data, for 20€/month [0]. it's surprising the market hasn't developed likewise in other (European) countries; I (genuinely) wonder why − perhaps legal issues of some sort?

edit: okay, sending MMS isn't always free, depends on the countries[1]. still free for USA, Europe, Canada, etc.

[0]: https://mobile.free.fr/fiche-forfait-free

[1]: https://mobile.free.fr/docs/bt/tarifs.pdf

[laurencerowe]

I think it’s more historical at this point. 20 years ago SMS was expensive in Europe as we had cheap plans and expensive calls/texts vs US which had expensive plans but free calls/texts. That made things like WhatsApp take off in Europe while Americans would just SMS.

(Although most Americans have iPhones so just transparently avoid SMS for most of their conversations.)

[StopDisinfo910]

There is no in the EU here. I had unlimited SMS in a sub 20€ plan more than a decade ago in France. I now have unlimited sms, unlimited calls and unlimited data in a sub 15€ plan.

I still only use WhatsApp because it’s a lot better than sms.

[abanana]

SMS is text only. If you're sending an image, you're not using SMS, you're using MMS.

There are phone deals that include unlimited SMS messages, but not MMS.

[bossyTeacher]

Try searching for that message you send 5 years ago in Whatsapp vs SMS. Retrieval speed is unmatched. SMS wins.

Now try, exporting all your whatsapp messges to standard format that can be interpreted in any text editor. Again, SMS wins.

Looking for the abusive messages a nasty acquitance sent you? Again, SMS wins.

[hei-lima]

Same in LATAM.

[nozzlegear]

SMS isn't widespread in the US, iMessage is.

[B1FIDO]

SMS is very widespread in the United States.

All the B2C services I work with are sending SMS to my phone. Not RCS, not iMessage: they are sending SMS messages.

All the MFA providers, such as Twilio and Okta, are sending SMS.

All the political campaign spammers are sending SMS.

All the reminders for appointments and bills are sending SMS.

All the notifications for apps where Push isn't good enough: they're sending SMS.

If user-to-user communication is using iMessage then that is fine. I have noticed that only about 2 of my human contacts use RCS, and at least 2 of them are using iPhones and not Androids for it. So that's some anecdata for ya!

[nozzlegear]

That's all automated bullshit that almost everyone would opt out of if given the chance. Nobody is using that by choice.

[temp8830]

But you see, in other countries automated bullshit often talks to you over WhatsApp or Telegram instead.

[xvedejas]

It all depends on age group in my experience. My friends all a bit older than me prefer Messenger for everything. My friends all younger than me prefer Discord. I think my parents and their generation use iMessage, but I use WhatsApp with them. My generation used to use snapchat a lot, I think, but I never got on that boat.

[nozzlegear]

> My friends all younger than me prefer Discord.

That's interesting; I have and use discord myself (owner of a 300+ member server for my WoW guild), but I've never really considered it a messaging app in the same way I do iMessage, WhatsApp, and so on. I think because everyone is pseudo anonymous, it's more like social media to me. Plus I've got the phone numbers and iMessage groups for close friends I've made over discord.

Given its popularity among gamers of all nationalities, I wonder where discord stacks up in relation to the EU's DMA?

[miki123211]

Discord is popping up as shadow IT in some places. Because of all the server admin stuff (bot APIs, Github bots, pretty advanced RBAC etc), it's basically "Slack but for free, and without the annoying SSO."

[efreak]

Being pseudonymous doesn't prevent you from using it to contact people you actually know offline. I used Steam to talk with my group members about a project in college a couple times. Other times I used Google chat/talk/whatever it was called at the time (embedded in the browser inbox). I had a flip phone at the time, so pretty much anything I could use on desktop was easier.

[slumberlust]

40% of Americans are not using I whatever. I'd consider that widespread.

[nozzlegear]

> I whatever

iMessage?

> 40% of Americans are not using [iMessage]. I'd consider that widespread.

That doesn't mean those 40% are using SMS instead.

[wolvoleo]

Yeah I hate SMS. I don't want my carrier to be involved in the content of my communications. Also I normally use the computer when at home, no point using a tiny mobile device obviously.

I don't use Google or Apple accounts either so RCS is out too. WhatsApp is meta now unfortunately but for historical reasons there's no avoiding it here.

I use WhatsApp and Telegram pretty much exclusively (telegram more for group chats)

[vladvasiliu]

> I think most of its use is simply local, for your community or friend group.

I live in one such country, and indeed, the bulk of my usage is to coordinate with local groups based in the same city.

But tend to meet many people from the US who don't live here, and they all straight up ask for my whatsapp.

I'm also a heavy telegram and signal user, and can't recall a single instance of anybody mentioning these.

[joe_mamba]

>The regional limit makes it pretty much useless.

Sounds like an easy fix. Europe just has to convince the rest of the world to ditch the 15 year old popular US apps ingrained in pop culture and with network effects, and have them switch to their own EU made apps, this way we can all communicate together. :hugs: Until then, let's keep chatting on $US_APP so we can debate on how we're gonna achieve that switch.

[neves]

Man, this is just a message app. It's trivial. The law must mandate it to work.

It's not a technical problem. It's a political one

[speleding]

Not sure whether you would call this technical, but the difficulty lies in allowing third party access and still prevent spam.

The reason Whatsapp won out over competing services in the first place (over here at least) was that they managed to be both free and relatively spam free. All free alternatives quickly got subsumed by spam (even non-free SMS has a spam problem nowadays).

[ForHackernews]

Email has solved that problem already.

[showsover]

Claiming email has solved spam is a WILD take as 45% of current email traffic is spam.

[ExoticPearTree]

> Man, this is just a message app. It's trivial. The law must mandate it to work.

I don't know if you know this, but the EU cannot force a company to obey EU laws outside of the EU.

[neko-kai]

Yes, it can. And it has done so before.

[ExoticPearTree]

Care to provide a link where the EU can tell a US company how to do business in Brazil (random country)?

[fooker]

> It's not a technical problem

How do you do encryption?

[zrm]

A probable implementation is that you bootstrap the initial key exchange using web PKI (if you want to talk to [e-mail] then your client makes a TLS connection to example.com and asks for Alice's public key) and thereafter you use something like the Signal ratchet thing.

[lazide]

That technical solution is significant and unsolved. I don’t think it would likely work without some major new standards either.

[catoc]

Serving 2+ billion daily users is a technical challenge at least

[Grimblewald]

Shouldnt be hard to convince folks. Everyone i know hates facebook / meta and is just waiting for an agreed upon alternative.

[direwolf20]

There's one. It's Signal. I keep telling people to use it and they keep not, because people are less likely to do things if they've been told they should do them.

[j1elo]

To add a datapoint I can share mine: it's me who would be in a position to bootstrap the change in my circles, but I wouldn't use or recommend Signal as Whatsapp replacement until the core features are on parity, including history backups, which have always been a lagging userstory for Signal.

I think they have different (and somewhat opposing, even) targets, Signal wants to be extremely privacy protecting, and it's a disservice to their goals to sell them as a replacement for WhatsApp, because they're not.

[mhitza]

BTW Signal has a backup feature in the client (beta). Though can't say more about how it works since its a feature I do not need.

[jhasse]

Signal is so much worse than WhatsApp from a UX perspective. Backup sync forces you to allow background permissions (WhatsApp doesn't), you have to set and get nagged to enter a PIN every few weeks (WhatsApp doesn't), there's no transcription for audio messages (WhatsApp has that for some languages), the desktop app loses its connection if you don't open it ever few weeks (WhatsApp works fine), etc.

If you want people to switch, recommend Telegram.

[maqp]

>If you want people to switch, recommend Telegram.

Why would people switch from always-end-to-end encrypted group chats to never-end-to-end encrypted group chats?

[Batman8675309]

Yes. Let's switch to an app with Russian connections that has actively refused to implement E2EE for over a decade now.

[expedition32]

My circle switched to Signal because we are concerned about tech bros and a fascist America.

Boosting Russia is not the solution.

[swiftcoder]

Without interoperability with the chat platform all the regular people are already using, that's always going to be an uphill battle.

I use Signal to communicate with other tech folks, but good luck convincing your dentist/doctor/etc to send reminders on signal instead of WhatsApp.

[sunshowers]

I talk to one of my doctors over Signal.

[xmcp123]

Everybody says this until there’s an alternative.

There have been several alternatives, and people didn’t switch.

[zarzavat]

The alternatives suck.

WhatsApp strikes a good balance of usability and security. Telegram is too insecure (no E2E by default). Signal is too secure (no chat exports).

Nobody has even bothered to make an app that stands toe-to-toe with WhatsApp, even without the network effects.

[tonyhart7]

You literally mention 2 of the biggest whatsapp competitor and you have audacity to says "Nobody has even bothered to make an app that stands toe-to-toe with WhatsApp"

[bornfreddy]

Signal allows you to do local chat export for backup, as opposed to WhatsApp (which only allows backup to Google account on android). That's actually my biggest complaint against WhatsApp and Viber: why don't you allow local backup, or backup to something I control?

[computerfriend]

Signal has exports.

[Scarblac]

There is an ongoing move from Whatsapp to Signal. It's just very slow.

[prmoustache]

> agreed upon

That is the main issue.

There are alternatives but waaaay too many already. Some will say Signal, others matrix, xmpp, jami, deltachat, olvid, simplex, briar, tox,...there is a new one every couple of months but none everbody can agree on.

The sad part is we were halfway there with XMPP 2 decades ago when both google and facebook were interoperable with it.

[anonzzzies]

I have lately been telling people whatsapp is from facebook (meta means nothing to them) and now they are looking for alternatives. Unfortunately, there isn't really much european/eu (never heard of birdychat though). It does show though it is not hard to get some people to switch; they have groups on whatsapp and use it for nothing else; these are people they chat with often so they only need to switch those and then whatsapp can go.

I find Telegram the best app; its faster and easier than the rest I find. The default no e2e sucks so cannot use it for everything, but having everything immediately ready and working on all devices makes it very nice. When you buy a new one, immediately all is there. Yes, obviously I am aware that can only be because no e2e, but normies and non normies alike seem to really hate the whatsapp, and even more, signal losing all your messages because backup/restore is too annoying. I wouldn't recommend it to anyone, but if someone manages to make more that experience... I mean turn it around; make e2e the default but allow people to create groups or 1-1 without e2e if they want (knowing then downsides and upsides of that).

[maqp]

>working on all devices makes it very nice.

Signal has end-to-end encryption working on all devices. Telegram doesn't because they're amateurs.

[anonzzzies]

I didn't say Signal did not and obviously Telegram can make it work because they do have it if you switch it on per chat. So what do you mean?

Edit: I guess you are from Ukraine? That is valid, the CEO is fishy. I did say I would not recommend it, I said it is the only performant and easy to use chat app I know off. That was a user perspective thing and more the hope of people pointing out 'no you fool here is another good one'. Definitely not Signal, slow and unfriendly. Whatsapp a little better, but Meta. Next.

[prmoustache]

> Unfortunately, there isn't really much european/e

What about Deltachat/Arcanechat?

[joe_mamba]

You realize that at the end of your sentence you've contradicted everything you've said from the start until that point, right?

Maybe it was tongue in cheek and I missed it.

[kelvinjps10]

It's not really about that but more that other countries start regulating the same way as WhatsApp and that way not all people would switch to these apps but they would have the opportunity to use it and keep talking with their friends and family

[ExoticPearTree]

> Sounds like an easy fix. Europe just has to convince the rest of the world to ditch the 15 year old popular US apps ingrained in pop culture and with network effects, and have them switch to their own EU made apps

Are you on some funny medication or something? ROTFL.

[zjaffee]

I'm originally from the US, but where I live now, whatsapp functionally replaced email for a lot of different types of communication (that would be an email in the US). Recruiters text me on whatsapp about jobs, I can ask for a prescription renewal through it, and I get support from everything ranging from a government agency to customer support for things from businesses, ect.

[yapyap]

> The regional limit makes it pretty much useless. The only reason I keep a whatsapp account is to stay in touch with my family in law and a few relatives who live in another continent.

… useless FOR YOU. not useless overall. its just that you in your limited use case cannot use it.

[bambax]

> pretty much useless

To you maybe. Not everyone has overseas contacts.

[swiftcoder]

> Not everyone has overseas contacts

It's not really the "overseas" usecase that is the sticking point for many businesses.

Does your business in Spain ever need to message Brits who are there on holiday? Does your business in Greece ever have customers who drive across the border from Albania?

[prmoustache]

We live in a global world and this is super common nowadays. In my own family 2 out of 3 sibling are married with someone who was born in a different continent, one in Asia, the other in Latin America.

And we both met them here in Europe.

People are so welcoming in latin america that when you marry someone, you literally marry the whole extended family. After just a handful of years is not like my partner's aunts and cousins are strangers to me. I can contact them anytime for advice on a topic related to their work/career field and they will do so about mine.

Add to that some cousins and friends who moved overseas and I have many regular contacts that live more than 10000km away from me.

[krick]

I'm not sure what they mean by "in the region", but my case is even more extreme, as pretty much the only time I'm forced to use whatsapp is when I'm travelling and need to communicate with all sorts of hosts who annoyingly expect me to have whatsapp. After returning home I always delete it.

So I am usually "in the region" with those guys, but since "region" probably means "similar phone number" it will be useless to me too.

[krzyk]

It is an unique feature.

Most people communicate with the ones in their region. Even when going on vacation most people can afford only to travel around their own continent.

[miki123211]

"on your own Continent" != "in the EU."

Ukraine isn't in the EU, neither is Swicerland, Norway or, most famously, the UK. All of these are on the European continent, all of these have citizens living right near a border with an EU country and regularly having to communicate with the EU side.

[krzyk]

This is for EAA, which includes Switzerland, Norway and even Turkey.

Yes, it does not include UK, but that's on them.

I encourage people living in other countries to complain to their goverment on Metas policies.

[Tom1380]

I'm in Switzerland and I can confirm that it applies here too

[dfajgljsldkjag]

It's better than nothing. If you have a different app and want to talk to your friend who uses whatsapp it's much easier to convince him to toggle a setting than to download a different app.

[InsideOutSanta]

Yep, 100% malicious compliance on Meta's part. I hope they get punished for this.

[mlrtime]

How so exactly? They can say they are keeping conversations secure from 3rd parties.

[sagarm]

That doesn't make sense -- the parties to the conversation already _have_ the messages.

Spam prevention is a likely angle, however. EU should force it to be opt-out, not opt-in -- probably what people want anyway.

[speleding]

I would like to be opted out by default. I'm worried at least one of those new services is going to get overrun by spammers, and if I'm opted in by default they could use the gateway to whatsapp to spam everyone else.

[thisislife2]

Could you clarify - What has been implemented as opt-in by WhatsApp to act as a hurdle?

[odo1242]

Receiving message requests from third-party users. So you have to get the person you know to flip a toggle before they get the message.

[thisislife2]

Is this a per-contact setting or a "universal" one?

[zeeZ]

It's a universal setting. You have to enable it per third-party app, though. You get to choose whether you want to see them listed with WhatsApp chats or in a separate folder

[progval]

It's universal, but you need to whitelist specific apps people can message you from. This is what it looks like: https://i.imgur.com/0gKY76z.png

[odo1242]

Account-wide. Though you can only turn it on in Europe.

[benj111]

When you say Europe you mean the EU? I'm not seeing an option in the UK. (Yay Brexit)

[riffraff]

Yeah it's the EU, this is a result of the DMA regulation. I suppose the British government could enact a similar regulation tho.

[dfajgljsldkjag]

Each whatsapp user needs to enable the setting once to allow chats with multiple number of third party users.

[wohoef]

Just opened my Whatsapp settings and "Third-party chat requests" is on by default (From the Netherlands). Although to actually receive messages you do have to activate this feature.

[Fire-Dragon-DoL]

How the opt-in is considered acceptable, that's a toothless resolution

[tonyhart7]

because its EU only ????? you want it to be enabled by default while only certain amount of people want to use it

[Fire-Dragon-DoL]

Is it auto enabled on eu phones? If not, to ne it's not compliant

[moffkalast]

I thought the stupid name was enough to kill it tbh. I'm not telling anyone they can call me on "birdychat" lmao.

[lpcvoid]

While I also don't think Birdychat is a good name, you could also argue that "Whatsapp" is a weird name for an app billions of people use.

[jrowen]

WhatsApp is a bizarre name, and I think that contributes to it occupying a "lower rent" space than the others (the goofy chat background also helps). But I think most people ultimately gloss over the joke and it just becomes kind of abstract.

With BirdyChat though, it feels like you'll be confronted by its silliness in perpetuity.

[urbandw311er]

> any BirdyChat user

And how many of these are there? Anyone?

[zoobab]

"opt-in"

FAIL

[raverbashing]

> as it's been implemented as opt-in on WhatsApp's side

Chatting with anyone has always been opt in from the point of the receiver, so I don't get your point?

[dmitrygr]

I understand my agreement with WhatsApp - i read it and all. I have no agreement with that other app. I do not know what they would do with my data. Until they give me a privacy policy and i approve it, they indeed should have none of my data. Opt-in is the correct solution.

I am not even sure how this is GDPR-compliant (that app is European and thus must care about GDPR). They do not have my permission to have/handle my private data, and GDPR does not allow WhatAspp to hand it over without my permission either... My name (which whatsapp exposes simply with my phone number) is considered PII under GDPR and

[lxgr]

What a strange way to think about a telecommunications service. By the same logic, shouldn’t there be a privacy policy for regular old phone lines? Who knows which third parties are between you and the person on the other end!

And speaking about the other end: I have bad news about all the data you share with untrustworthy contacts on WhatsApp…

Quite practically, anyone that enables backups (which WhatsApp heavily nudges people to do) uploads a copy of all your messages and media sent to them to a cloud provider you have no privacy agreement with.

[dmitrygr]

old telephone lines did not disclose info about me with merely my phone number. whataspp discloses name, picture, status

As for your second comment, updated first comment with:

I am not even sure how this is GDPR-compliant if that app is European. They do not have my permission to have my private data, and GDPR does not allow whatAspp to hand it over without my permission either...

[dotancohen]

  > old telephone lines did not disclose info about me with merely my phone number.

Old telephone lines most certainly disclosed additional information about you. Who you contacted, when, how often.

Did you call that drug dealer every Tuesday evening? Looks suspicious. Did that criminal call you the day before he robbed a store not far from your home? Looks suspicious. Do you call Pakistan twice a week? Looks suspicious. Have you ever called a suicide prevention hotline? A bank other than your own? A mosque? An independent political party?

Your POTS phone was always revealing information.

[lxgr]

> whataspp discloses name, picture, status

Only to who you choose to make it available to. And if you choose “everybody”, I don’t see how you can reasonably expect this to mean “everybody not using third-party software”?

[dmitrygr]

Because until today that IS what it meant! Are you claiming that "pray i do not change the deal further" is a sane approach?

[lxgr]

I just don’t think that’s a reasonable expectation of a telecommunications tool, so yeah, I think it’s a fair change well within the norms and expectations of an instant messenger.

You should get to control how/ to whom your data is distributed, but also requiring these recipients to only use software and services of your choosing seems excessive. Platform lock-in at this point seems like the much greater harm.

I could see the case for a small indicator in the contact details that they’re using a third-party client, but anything more (green bubbles?) would be counterproductive.

[direwolf20]

The recipient is already using third-party code. I am using a Samsung OS, which is not from Meta, to see your messages. Do you object to this? I also have the YouTube PiP overlay layer in front of your messages.

[sagarm]

That is Zuck's usual MO, so why not apply it when it's not to his advantage?

[mlrtime]

Because I don't chose everybody? I don't want everyone to see my information, why would I?

[inexcf]

Man there's a rising amount of people who don't understand hypotheticals. How can you think that your comment "...I don't chose everybody?" is a valid answer to "If you chose everybody..." ?

[lxgr]

Then don't choose everybody. Settings -> Privacy -> set everything to "my contacts" or "nobody".

[xmcp123]

Old telephones had caller ID. They would send your name and company.

You did have to initiate the call, but you still didn’t have any kind of agreement about it.

[mlrtime]

Yes, and you used to have to pay for it! Not only was it opt-in, there was a charge.

[direwolf20]

Several people have scraped every possible phone number from WhatsApp so they know your name, picture, and status if they want it.

[mlrtime]

So, that doesn't mean we give it away freely because someone was malicious. That makes no sense.

[direwolf20]

It's already given away freely. Anyone who has WhatsApp can add you as a contact and see this information.

If you are bored and have a computer, you can add every possible phone number as a contact. Not many people do that, but some did.