I'd probably still use it if I had to pay for it

Only if you donate. Otherwise bad news, Signal.

It asks for your phone number, so it can't be truly private.

It's not very easy to solve the issue of infinite growth in a world with finite resources. The fundamental issue is that it's just not physically possible, but they keep trying. Either we continue this cycle and eventually destroy the planet irreversibly, or we acknowledge that maybe money isn't everything, and that maybe [the vast majority of] people aren't inherently egoitistical monsters, and we move on to different systems.

WhatsApp was charging $1-$3 per year before Facebook's acquisition. They had 600M+ users and a team of twelve people. It was beautiful while it lasted.

Hopefully we can carry out the original mission with Signal.

The enshittification process in a nutshell.

@AuthSo that's why we donate to @signalapp @MazonnaCara89

Eastern Europe loves the app Viber that Rakuten bought, which has had ads for years.

People LOVE a walled garden of their friends are there, too.

It's not just the funding, it's the business overall. Public companies need to show growing revenues year to year, and worse: growing revenues with a minimum yield. A product can grow by attracting more users up to a certain point. Then the only way to grow is by making more money out of the same users base. If the revenue is based on ads:

• Extend the product so that the user's engagement increases (channels/others kind).
• Add paying features (freemium approach, that includes blue stars or whatever the hell you want it to look like…)
• Serve them ads

Freemium is not always working well and Meta never used it. They have no new great idea to extend the product without eating their other products users bases. So the only one left is more ads.

Funding is not the issue, for-profit companies are. Non-profit is the way to go. Federation is even better as individuals/families/small organizations can run their own servers.-

Begin? 🤔🤔🤔

What year is this?

Oh honey that ship sailed long ago

I use Beeper which shows me a unified view of whatsapp and Signal and others. whatsapp itself has zero permissions on my phone. I hate that I need to have it at all but Europe is deep into that. Sigh.

Who is forcing you?

Hope so... Just a little bit and them another ones when they extent the implementation of IA... And wishing to not be the standard any more

I just wish SMS would go away.

Of course they fucking grab it. They have 45 backdoors with golden handles otherwise they're show the fucking source

Is it really enshitification if it was shit to begin with?

jesus that some dystopian shit

Facebook has had a strategy for a long time of monopolising the internet of countries that previously had very little internet. They essentially subsidise internet infrastructure and make that subsidy dependent on facebook being a central part of the network.

So I'm not surprised to hear this. They obviously have found ways to inveigle themselves into key infrastructure in lots of places, even if they couldn't build it in from the ground up.

@MazonnaCara89 @Excrubulent I'm unable to reply your reply directly (for some reason, the Friendica instance I use can't see the Lemmy instance you're in; I'm suspecting it's because Solarpunk instance uses Anubis CAPTCHA and Friendica could be operating in a different manner from how Lemmy operates hence triggering Anubis for a server-to-server communication, but I'm not sure).I'm replying through this reply to my reply.Facebook has had a strategy for a long time of monopolising the internet of countries that previously had very little internet. They essentially subsidise internet infrastructure and make that subsidy dependent on facebook being a central part of the network.Exactly. And many carrier operators over here (Tim, Claro, Vivo) offer "rate-less access" (i.e. won't count as consumed bytes) to Facebook, WhatsApp, among other mainstream platforms (sometimes TikTok).Also, there are "Captive portals" (web-based Wi-Fi authentication for passwordless Wi-Fi networks) from many "free Wi-Fi hotspots" out there which uses "Facebook login" as a means of getting accessing to their "free Wi-Fi". Facebook (and, by extension, Meta and its platforms) is deeply ingrained into Brazilian's daily lives and I'm frequently told to "have a Facebook profile" for me, it's deeply annoying.They obviously have found ways to inveigle themselves into key infrastructure in lots of places, even if they couldn’t build it in from the ground up.Exactly!@joel_feila:jesus that some dystopian shitYeah... it's a deeply boring dystopian world. The world has been indistinguishable from Cyberpunk.

The best time to quit was 10 years ago. The second-best time is now.

👆 mark that comment. I'm sure you'll write that again in a year or so

Slowpoke meme, I chose you... like 10 years ago.

Same thing here in Italy

Same here in UK. So many people think of it like email. A universal communication system. They can't see the problem with it being a single, closed, for profit, provider. Now Meta feels people are locked in, they will be finding out. But they still won't see the problem until it ratcheted to really bad. Like frogs in boiling water.

Same in Germany.

I do believe it's better than using iMessage for example but it's undoubtedly rubbish.