This may sound a bit dumb, but eh.

So when that WhatsApp privacy policy change thing happened in early 2021, I tried switching from WhatsApp to Signal and Telegram. Telegram kinda stuck with me since i still get news from there, but Signal… not really because I didn’t care about privacy back then. Now, I want to make the switch from WhatsApp to Signal, and I have a few plans on how to do that. But, is it worth it, since most people in Türkiye use Whatsapp and even if I switch my family and friends over to Signal, they’ll still use WhatsApp since most people are on there.

So, yeah. Should i try, or is it not worth doing? Let me know, also, thanks in advance!

(Note: Most of my family and friends don’t really care about privacy.)

(Note 2: This was also posted in r/signal and r/privacy subreddits.)

  • Max
    1•1 year ago

    I think it is difficult for others to tell you whether it is “worth it”, because that is very personal.

    For me, personally, transferring my family and friends to Signal is not worth it because Signal requires a phone number. If I will invest such an effort, I would rather help them migrate to a service that does not require a phone number - such as Matrix or an XMPP server. But needing a phone number to register might not be a problem for you - in which case Signal could be a perfectly reasonable choice.

    But… Even then - is it worth it? Again, it is up to you. I tried, but my success has been limited. The reality is that I still have a phone with WhatsApp that I leave at home and I check it every day or two. I tell people that if they want to reach me, the best is to use e-mail. And to my closest friends and some of my family I did convince them to use my XMPP chat so that we can be connected more often. No one really left WhatsApp, but at least we can have some fun conversations on our own server, which is nice.

    But I am not going to lie, I am sacrificing a ton of functionality and convenience. For me, this is worth it because I think that it is GOOD not to be available through the phone all the time, and I am idealist when it comes to not giving big companies our data. But for some people these sacrifices might be unsustainable, and it might not be worth it.

    So: I don’t know. Maybe it’s worth it?