Try being in one of the many countries where whatsapp is the only path to get service from companies (banks, utilities, etc).
Even better, try living a modern life as a tourist abroad without a phone number. You can't get transportation, even public (and there is no physical payment option), you can't order delivery, you can't pay with credit cards online because you need to auth with sms. Everything requires an account and everything requires sms.
It's not just about privacy of your personal texts. People are putting entire societies in the hands of tech/telecom and demanding we identify through unsecure methods. Having a smartphone with a phone number and whatever is the main local app is now mandatory. Single point of failure everywhere.
Exactly. And may I add to your point the privatization of public communication by social media ( especially Instagram ). It's becoming very hard to find information about your city public action without an account on Instagram; now to be a citizen is required to have an "social media id".
Also, business are becoming hostages of Instagram: their only way to communicate with the customers is through this mediation. I think is very very important to platforms like pixelfed to become more popular and indeed brake these people free.
The last few Amber alerts I've gotten required an app Formerly known as Twitter account to get any additional details...
I would love to just use signal and nothing else, but I would loose contact to most of my friends and family.
I tried to convince them, without success.
Hence the meme. 😅
It isn't really a question of ability to install the app. Anybody can do that. The difficult part is convincing anyone you want to talk to to also use it as well.
I just started work for a small company with a bunch of service techs flying around the country sending proprietary company information back and forth all day. Perfect application for something like Signal, but the owner is an Apple fanatic, so everyone carries iPhones and uses iMessage.
Ahem ... hence the meme?
Does the meme not imply that people are smart enough to know how to use LLMs, but not smart enough to know how to use apps like signal?
I'm saying that people are smart enough to know how to use them. But when you don't know anybody else who uses them, it doesn't matter if you know how to use it, or even if you really want to, you can't because nobody else does. (Which makes the "with no downsides" part of your meme a bit untrue - I'd definitely consider not being able to talk to a majority of people a downside)
It'd be like if you made the bottom panel, "users when asked to order directly from the manufacturer instead of supporting Amazon." People know how to do it, but... nobody cares.
Sorry, I don't know anyone who uses WhatsApp.
(This is a lie, for comedy, sometimes known as a joke when not explained, but it has to be explained, because there's a preponderance of idiots on the internet, hence the meme)
signal only works when everyone uses signal. and everyone will only use signal once everyone else is on signal. this is why signal cant work.
