They supposedly can be disabled in settings- but we all know that won’t last. They’re going full Microsoft Skype mode and it’s only a matter of time.
I get so tired of this “servers are expensive” cycle. Anyone know of a good P2P alternative? No servers, no ads, no subscriptions.
Skype was P2P for voice, video and files- only text chat and user discovery had any major server usage so users could receive chats while offline. Microsoft still sought to centralize & monetize it, they actively removed a lot of the P2P networking to “improve user experience”. Any service owned by any profit seeking corporation will have the same end result regardless of the underlying tech; their excuses will just change forms.
Briar, Jami, SimpleX and Tox are all semi similar to what you might be looking for.
Quick search turned this up, but I’m on mobile, so not in a great place to dig into how viable it is. A Reddit post indicated it’s in some sort of alpha/beta stage, but I think it is something you can use today
Edit: Forgot the link like a fool https://positive-intentions.com/