I’ve been seeing this more and more in comments, and it’s got me wondering just how big this issue really is. A lot of people feel trapped in apps like Discord, WhatsApp, and Instagram, but can’t get their friends to leave.
It’s really annoying when you suggest trying something new, whether it’s a different app or just not using these platforms so much but sometimes it can feel like no one wants to go first.
So I’m curious, what apps do you feel most trapped in? And have you tried convincing your friends to leave them? What happened? Is it an issue for you, or are you just going along with the flow?
Looking forward to hearing if this is as common as it feels!
It’s Facebook Messenger and Whatsapp for me. I ditched the Facebook app a long time ago, but Messenger and Whatsapp remain on my device because no one wants to leave them. I try to keep my chats there as superficial as possible.
Also, this is my first comment ever on Lemmy, so hi everyone!
Welcome to lemmy!
Asking people to leave things means they’re losing a line of communication to friends, family, and interest groups who still use those things. It’s probably more productive to ask people to add the services you prefer rather than leave the ones they’re used to.
I’ve encountered some resistance from Americans who use iPhones and hate the idea of adding a third-party messaging app. None of them seem very interested in justifying that position.
It’s because our marketing sucks. People don’t care about their privacy, they like what is cool. So what does that mean? It mean we gotta make using open source app so cool that people can’t help but join because all the cool kids are here. You feel me? Preaching alone is not enough although it will benefit all of us
Networking effect
People use whatever is most popular even if its the shittest thing such as Facebook.
Only time people will care is when it personally and tangibly affects them.
For Facebook/whatsapp watomatic can be used to remind people you are leaving or such.
I remember when Snapchat was extremely popular for messaging. One of the worst apps I’ve ever used. Just an absolutely atrocious UI.
Probably the idea of “all my other friends are on the mainstream platform so why would i move to another platform specifically for you?”
I ditched meta platforms entirely for signal in 2019, lets say I dont have many close friends anymore haha, my social life is kaput, even my work groupchat is on facebook
People don’t typically like change. It has to feel like it’s their decision to drive them there.
SMS
Nobody wants to use a messaging app at all. At this point I’d rather be stuck on WhatsApp. But its all family. Big family and try to get them to agree on anything is like pulling teeth.
I even sent everybody a “contact card” I made with my links to signal, simplex, and even whatsapp (figuring that’s the path of least resistance) saying I’d prefer to communicate on any of those apps. ZERO people changed nor did they even ask about it, options, or my reasoning.
It’s network effects. People have other friends on the network who have their own friends on the network, and so on. Leaving the network means convincing a critical mass of your network to leave along with you.
And it would be easier with good bridges, but of course the big platforms like Twitter, Facebook, etc., refuse to bridge in or out with anything.
You can scrape public Facebook feeds, using paid services, but AFAICT you need a friend on the inside to publish your stuff into Facebook.
I guess that’s one reason I shouldn’t complain about Bluesky - They support Bridgy.
Are there even public feeds anymore? Anytime I’ve gone to Facebook since deleting it wants me to login first, no matter what the link was to
In other words, you say that we should just give up.
I’m simply explaining why it’s difficult for people to move from existing networks.
I less have an issue with people getting trapped in software they understand is insecure, and more with people who will push shit like telegram and pretend its the most private and secure thing ever invented. If they want to use discord, sure, fine with me. As long as they know not to do their activist work on discord I’m fine with it. People doing activist work/planning over telegram will never make me not cringe.
Signal isn’t something I personally want to use, but its tolerable, and it was doing a good job of replacing telegram in activist spaces I felt, but I’ve recently seen a few different groups using telegram again because they don’t trust signal.
xmpp with omemo is what I wish I could get people to use but uh, well, that just will never happen.
How do you set up XMPP with OMEMO as anonymously as possible? My friend and I would love to video call each other, currently we’re using SimpleX for this, but it’s very buggy. We use Molly for calling and SimpleX for texting, both of us are switching to using Libreboot laptops with QubesOS to communicate :)
I love teaching my friend privacy. He’s really gotten into it, I’ve done a good job making him just as paranoid as I am!
I’m gonna be honest, its been so long since I’ve actually had people to set it up and use it with that even I would need to spend a day and a half figuring out how to set it up again.
What are some good alternatives to discord?
Comfort and scared of change. The dopamine these sites give you is close to sex for some people as weird as it sounds. So if you tell them to stop using Instagram, they can’t process that and simply say no.
This is just part of human nature. Some of us are able to say “hey this website is run by horrible people and I refuse to support it.” We leave and find other options and help them grow. We are in the minority.
Most people simply do not want to try something everyone else doesn’t use cause they don’t want to seem weird. Stupid societal norms.
Discord for me. A bunch of my family and friends are avid gamers. Discord is the universal standard app they all use for general communication.
Not only do they use it for all their gaming related stuff, they have additional servers and channels for just chilling, chatting, off topic stuff, memes, politics, etc etc.
It’s the network effect. Even if there was an open source app that perfectly replicated all the functionality of Discord and was just as simple to install and run as Discord, most of them still wouldn’t switch to it, because all of their friends and family are still on Discord.
So they would have to have two completely separate apps with totally separate social groups to maintain, and nobody but hardcore advocates for FOSS and privacy are willing to do that.
Sure, I have Discord, Matrix, IRC, Signal, XMPP clients, and a Private Mumble server, all on my systems, but I’m hardcore about FOSS. None of my friends and family are willing to do that. It took all my energy to convince two of my most techie friends just to get Signal on their phones. And only One has been willing to install a Matrix client to chat just with me.
I have the same issue, but got 2 Discord users to try Jitsi Meet with me (a friend of mine on my Snikket server invited her friend). After a while, her friend asked me why it looked so much alike Discord and my friend agreed. I gave them a big smile and said, “because this is awesome”.
Jitsi Meet + Snikket has been my saves since I deleted my Discord account during the pandemic.
Im checking out snikett🙌 thanks for the suggestion ❤️
I loved Jitsi too, though, the call quality was a bit low quality when I used it previously (browser version I believe). The only problem with Jitsi, is how do you set up a server?
For example, Professer Messer has a Discord server, but a lot of people use the chat rooms for conversations, and there a lot of other study sessions taking place in different voice channels. I really wonder what the other alternative to Discord is. Mumble won’t do since I don’t think it has the ability to screen share.
I find the quality very good. And there’s no problems with setup a “server” :)
- Go to the preferred Jitsi Meet server.
- Enter the meeting name (as it really called) or just press enter to get a random name.
- Enter your details and options (mainly mic on/off and webcam on/off).
- Enter the meeting. If you’re the first one in it, you’re the moderator.
Once inside and as a moderator, you can create so called breakout rooms. These works just like subchannels in Discord. If you’re many people in 1 call, you can create these to create a more calmer experience. I have personally not tried these out since I have only talked to 1-2 people.
Mumble is a excellent VoIP software, but like you said, screen sharing is not possible since Mumble is just what VoIP means: voice over IP.
Because people keep pushing for them to completely leave a platform.
Instead try to get them to dual-use platforms.
One of the big problems nowadays is proprietary protocols. Back in the day, you could have a single client that could talk to different networks. Today you have to run a bunch of separate apps, and what’s worse is that a lot of them are built with stuff like Electron that’s resource hungry.
Even the FOSS apps don’t all get along.
Conversations is great for XMPP, and it can act as a UnifiedPush pusher, but AFAICT it doesn’t support other protocols and it doesn’t act as a UnifiedPush subscriber.
So running 2 chat protocols, one being the well-support app Conversations on the well-supported protocol XMPP, means 2 push setups and 2 apps. Bleh.
I would like to see an architecture where the expensive app side of things is separated from the protocol. But that’s all speculative, I haven’t put work hours into it. Basically, if I have an idea for P2P chat, why do I need to re-invent emojis and channels and shit like that? I only want to iterate on transport. And if I have a better idea for channels, why would I have to re-invent the transport like XMPP and Matrix?
(The reason is that cutting those two apart is hard - But I will continue to wonder.)
Oh yeah the whole thing is a mess. It kind of blows my mind that we still don’t have a single common protocol that at least the open source world agrees on. Like there is a more or less fixed set of things chat apps need to do, we should be able to agree on something akin to ActivityPub here as a base.
