this post was submitted on 27 Jan 2026
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Do people still use Meta’s products?
WhatsApp has this weird grip on my country's people, it's insane.
Instagram and WhatsApp... So hard to get people to stop. Particularly where smaller countries and people who travel are, where WhatsApp is the default phone.
So shitty.
If anyone wants to talk to me, they’ll have to use one of the myriad ways to keep in touch that don’t involve Meta. I refuse to continue to be their product and help them keep the idea alive that they should somehow be unavoidable. Meta relies entirely on the relational networks of people, so I removed my node from their system and made their product a little worse for anybody interested in engaging with me. Life is better without Meta dopamin/rage addiction anyway.
I also enjoy not being reachable for the majority of people in my life, but for different reasons.
They are reachable though.
That’s the point - you are not unreachable if you’re not hooked up to Meta’s products. Far from it - at least from a European perspective. Threema and Wire are good European alternatives to Messenger, that are actually private. But also, the telephone has been invented, and so has sms and e-mail. The important thing is the human relationship, which continues to exist regardless of the app or technology you use to speak to each other.
Sure, I won't use anything meta.
But it can be hard like I said. You want to make an appointment with a doctor, an electrician, flower delivery? They want your WhatsApp. You can't make an appointment without it. They can't fill out their billing system. They won't call you on your phone because your number is long distance.
Everyone just expects WhatsApp. Makes it hard.
I’m sorry, but I’m not sure I understand completely. Why would your phonenumber be long distance to them?
Because people have cell plans (and no land lines anymore, like most places) that they brought from their own country or region that a lot of the time a phone call would be long distance. Or have text fees for reminders, or a combination of both. So the solution, a long time ago, was a single method that has no fees for either.
As an American the thought of your doctor requiring WhatsApp to communicate with you is just a foreign concept lol
sure but first, as an american, you have to make sure the doctor in question is ‘in network’
None of our doctors, in network or otherwise force us to Zuck’s apps lol.
sorry, the joke was about your ‘weird’ whatsapp communications vs our totally fuken stupid healthcare middlemen only exist to extract money from the doctor/patient relationship.
I wouldn’t call being forced to use a privacy invading, personal data harvesting, foreign-owned communications platform by nearly every facet of your society “weird”. I’d call it “deeply troubling”.
Imagine if every state had a different cell phone carrier or go back even further to when it was long distance even just blocks or cities over. Now imagine a technology comes in that doesn't care what carrier you are on, or if it's long distance.
That is kind of what happened to countries. Especially if you have people who work in one and live in another or have clients in another.
So even though now maybe it isn't long distance, or carriers talk to each other, everyone is used to the way they have been doing it for free.
Perhaps this new European government push to get away from American Big Tech will free you guys of this burden
Unfortunately yes