For me it’s Whatsapp. Like 99% of people i know use it so yeh… i still need it. I am considering moving the Whatsapp Gdrive backup to a local backup btw.
Google photos is also a major problem for us. We have a lot of stuff that want to migrate to different service (or store locally).
My friends and I all use Facebook’s messenger as our group chat and Discord for voice calls while gaming. That group chat is literally the only reason why I haven’t deleted my Facebook account yet. I have a Matrix space ready and have convinced a couple of people to make accounts and join the space, but it is just not being used at all. I was actually hoping someone was going to need to provide an ID to log into their discord account as that would most likely be the final push that moved everyone from messenger and discord over to Matrix, but so far it hasn’t happened and the Matrix space sits vacant
Deleting facebook is tricky in sooo many ways. From a tech view, it is so hard to find a “Delete account” button. You literally need to dig through random places to find it.
From a consumer view, it is very hard to truly delete it. Notice how facebook gave you a time limit in case you change your mind?
I know it’s basically impossible to make them delete the data they already have on me, I really just want to stop using their service
Not only that, but many local businesses don’t have websites and just use Facebook. Marketplace is another reason, Craigslist is practically dead near me.
A few weeks ago, some friends and I decided to go out for some drinks. We agreed upon a place and met up, only to find there was a Journey cover band performing with a $10 cover charge at the door. All of us hate Journey lol
I checked the website beforehand but it hadn’t been updated in months. However a friend checked their facebook page after we found out, and saw that they had posted about the band on there only 24 hours before.
I still have a Google account (down from four). But in the past, I used this for literally EVERYTHING ; now I only use it for a couple of incoming, remaining emails. Posteo is my email and calendar today. That’s a big step already. Same with google maps: ive switched to other European providers, but occasionally i may still use Google Maps. I canceled Meta completely, no more FB, IG or WhatsApp; instead I use the fediverse alternatives, and SMS or signal for messaging. Lemmy instead of Reddit. I use a hard drive for storing files; I have nothing anymore in a Cloud, but sometimes colleagues force me to use Google Drive. Overall I’m pleased; Perhaps it’s not about canceling everything consistently, but a 95% reduction is a good initial achievement.
I hear that a lot about WhatsApp—that everyone they know uses it—but I’ve never known anyone in my life who does. I mean what’s wrong with your phone’s built-in dialer? Or literally any other free VoIP app if paying your phone bill is the issue? What does WhatsApp provide that alternatives don’t?
It depends where you live. Whatsapp is the default way of communicating in a lot of countries, way more popular than text messages. You might be able to get individuals to contact you another way, but if the group chat is in WhatsApp, you’re probably not going to persuade the group to change.
Thanks but that only leaves me with more questions. Why is it that way in so many countries? Why don’t they use alternatives? Do they like being slaves to Meta, having their entire lives being monitored by the company?
It wasn’t always a Meta product. Also, by the time everyone started finding out how evil Facebook was, Whatsapp was too entrenched for people to easily switch to something else, not when all their friends and family members were using it.
In a lot of places, SMS is/was more expensive (and Whatsapp seen as affordable/available) around the time Whatsapp took off. If you’re from somewhere like a relatively small EU country where you’re more likely to want to message people from other countries, there’s also the issue of international rates. So SMS had more disadvantages in some places and wasn’t necessarily as widely adopted as in the US. And some places didn’t have quite the same progression from dumb phone texting to smartphone texting that the US had, either because of costs or lacking infrastructure. More people skipped the widespread dumb phone texting phase, and internet access was expanding. So there was no reason not to use a cheaper internet-based service from a provider people didn’t think was evil at the time.
Still on android and youtube unfortunately,
I got rid of Google easily. Unfortunately, I still have to use their Messages app for Rcs, and Youtube. But replaced all the other products.
I’ve been with Posteo almost a decade, that part was pretty easy. I remember downloading everything from Google Drive was pretty easy back then as well.
Then I used stock android until maybe a year ago when my phone was too old to get updates and too old to be supported by my banks app so I migrated to LineageOS.
The messaging app landscape is kind of a mess, so I use SMS/MMS BC as you’ve noted the landscape is fragmented at best.
I solved file storage with AlainKnaff/Android-SFTP-Documents-Provider which just SFTPs into my desktop at home.
For photos I’ve been using immich and I’m a fan. I’ve heard decent things about Ente photo too.
The huge almost-unavoidable one is gmail. You might use a different email provider yourself, but whenever you email another person, there’s a high chance that they are a gmail user. So whatever you wrote lands on a gmail server and stays there forever. Someday the entire contents of those servers will be crunched through an AI to identify and round up the undesirables.
Other than that, I confess to using google maps for road navigation pretty regularly. I tried to switch to Organic Maps but it just doesn’t work anywhere near as well. Also I watch a lot of youtube, though without having an account on it.
I don’t use gdrive or whatever. I don’t have a google account. I switched from google photos to fossify gallery a while back but (mostly from laziness) I still haven’t degoogled a few of the other stock android apps, that hopefully don’t upload anything. And yeah, I’m still on android itself. I don’t use any google play apps though. Just f-droid.
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I’ve been able to get rid of everything except Google maps. I tried magic earth for a year, but it wasn’t as complete. The last straw was the poor traffic mapping. I live in a city where a wrong turn can cost me 30 minutes, so it’s become a necessity. Unfortunately, traffic maps depend on an active user base, so it’s a bit of a catch 22/chicken and the egg problem.
I still use Whatsapp because it’s the only messaging app that the people I know use, other that telegram and I hate telegram even more.
Luckily whatsapp is available outside of google play, it can be dowloaded from the whatsapp site, it is a bit hidden but the apk is there to download.
unfortunately i have WhatsApp for use with one elderly relative but if anyone else dares contact me there i reply via any other route and then block them on WhatsApp
iirc theres a strict account settings in whatsapp. It literally blocks random messages, invites from groups and individuals. For groups, you cannot be invited or mentioned. For random person, he or she needs can only contact fully until you accept their request.
Not advocating for whatsapp, its owned by a shady company lmao, but these features are pretty ok.
