And thatās why if I was self employed Iād use another phone entirely or promote the usage of some other way of contacting me/us. Never would I have WhatsApp installed on my personal device (Dual SIM and all) since itās my choice, which I can make.
Peer pressure, social norms, and even ābosses demanding you join their WhatsApp to communicateā is a non starter here.
I think it annoys my immediate boss that I use our corporate email for everything, or even simply calling them telling them the most menial of things.
Oh, itās my choice to approach every potential client with a long-winded pitch about why Iām off the grid and donāt believe in telephones.
Itās just terrible for business, and since I do like to consume food to keep this sack of meat running, I donāt do that.
Look, there are two things happening here:
One, you donāt seem to get to what extent Meta has entirely replaced key parts of the communications infrastructure in several parts of the world. You may as well be advocating communication via carrier pigeon.
Two, you get a kick out of being the difficult contrarian weirdo that refuses to submit to the mainstream of modern tech because you work for some boss that thinks itās worth getting your skills despite that song and dance, so there is no immediate downside. I know. Been there, done that. When you freelance you get way less precious about that, by necessity.
And yes, by the way, I do keep separate hardware and software environments to isolate some predatory applications to work hardware. That is viable. Justā¦ not for Whatsapp. Because EVERYBODY uses it and I like my friends and family to keep talking to me, too.
Thatās the thingā¦I do understand your qualms about having to use them even if it irks you no end because youāre ānow not a weirdoā, and having run establishments prior to these days I find it amusing that youāre now required to indulge in sharing your contact list because itās the ānormā.
Which is awesome because I somehow manage to keep in touch with fellow friends, colleagues, family and even talking to others on platforms such as this without conglomerates poking my metadata too as much.
edit: too > as
Iām still a weirdo, but I canāt afford to be a weirdo performatively these days.
So yeah, I can default to Firefox or keep the MS tools I have to use for work on its own contained browser instance, or refuse to use Samsung or Apple phones or whatever other act of technological petty rebellion that I want. But the point Iām making is that cutting the cord on Whatsapp is not practical for daily use in this region. Itās very different in the US and in some other territories, but here itās definitely not.
Itās far easier to step away from Twitter, Instagram and even Facebook than it is to do the same with Whatsapp here. Thatās the big takeaway that I want to convey here.
