Downloaded all my data and deleted my account a month or so ago as I never use it (aside from Marketplace) and absolutely fuck giving those pricks my personal data for any zero discernable benefit
Set up a dummy account with no data in it for marketplace stuff, jobs a goodun
Got a Facebook account as a student when it was exciting and new, then after a couple of years deleted it for most of my twenties. Set up a new account a few years back mainly to keep in touch with some family members.
almost certain they deliberately did that to split the younger users who started using instagram, and the older less experienced users who are probably less likely to be bothered with a cluttered UI with loads of bells and whistles even though theyāre all useless.
pretty weird how quick Facebook pivoted to just being an app that you use to find out which of your school acquaintances got mega into QAnon within two and a half weeks of lockdown
Knew a few people in college who connected their twitter to Facebook so the home page would be clogged up with the same person live-blogging every movie they watched or threads full of blatant subtweets that became twelve status updates in a row.
Drifted away when they made messages almost completely inaccessible via Facebook in a browser, to they and hey you to use the standalone app. Have never once used the app for either.
How does WhatsApp make money? Whatās itās income stream? There are no adverts and no subscription fees.
So I suppose Iām just presuming itās selling user data. But they bang on about end-to-end encryption and not being able to see content. But itās gotta be all about the selling of data, right? But, like, just aggregated and depersonalised.
Have read a couple of shit articles. Which mention a WhatsApp for Business things, where the business has to pay if they donāt respond within 24hrs. Or something. But who the hell talks to a business via WhatsApp?
@ma0sm do you use the WhatsApp web app? Thatās actually pretty useful if you donāt want to look at your phone at work/send a link from your desktop more quickly.
I do, but only for my freelance and tours - NEVER for office job.
(the business option Iāve seen used quite a bit for live chat - some MH helplines do this, and Iāve started getting authentication codes from paypal in my whatsapp as well as texts etc)
That messenger.com link is seemingly just advertising the app to me?
Tried going to Facebook.com and selecting the Messenger menu item. Does nothing.
This is all on mobile, by the way.
So I tried what I used to do but got very bored of: desktop mode. Yep. Can access messages that way. Got a few unread ones sitting there from weeks and years ago. Remembered why I abandoned it: the other person can see whether/when youāve read a message. Found that very annoying. Creates a pressure to respond in a certain timeframe. Canāt be doing with it.
I accept that much of this is to do with me just being quite antisocial and/or often finding non-direct social interaction with people I know quite stressful.
My email inbox and SMS app are already riddled with this sort of thing. WhatsApp being entirely free of that rammel is a central and major factor in WhatsApp being useable (from my POV, at least).
Can see how freelance and tour stuff works for you. Personally, Iād probably prefer email, but I accept that Iām likely in the minority here. E.g. businesses (Iām thinking mainly local cafes, here) that seem to have Instagram as their primary point of contact, taking orders etc via that method, is just not my bag.