Saw this conversation online:
Signal seems to be booming right now in the Netherlands. I’ve been using it for years and never managed to grow my contact list beyond single digits, being a few friends in tech and a few who were very privacy conscious. All of those people were also available on WhatsApp and we’d often forget and message one another there.
But since January the trust in Meta has not only plummeted but it’s become a mainstream enough talking point that I now receive invites to join Signal groups from—for want of a better term—normal people. Two of the local parenting groups I’m on are on Signal and no one ever mentions it or questions it, it’s just “here’s the group link” and the expectation that everyone has it installed.
As a reply to:
At least in The Netherlands, WhatsApp could show a 60 second unskippable modal ad video on every launch, and still get away with it due to network effects.
If you’re not on WhatsApp, no updates or news from your kids school, your sports team, your family, your car dealership etc. for you.
Got me thinking.
Societies differ on a software level, i.e. in different societies people use different software stacks for … for everything, actually.