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!
So like, this is always seemingly done from a content CONSUMER point of view.
How can we provide content creators a safety net whom we as fans enjoy their content but said artists need to have their name and face out in the open? Particularly music artists/DJs/independent artists/etc?
I swear, anyone wanting privacy, just start calling yourself an artist and boom suddenly nobody can find any information about you! You don’t even have to be serious about it, just take a crayola to a bar napkin… /s
Get their parents to sign up. Feels like grannies sharing minion memes and Bible verses was the end of facebook’s cool era.
Only Grandmas <logoOfDenturesWithACherryOnTopThatHasATiedStem>
So just use something different yourself. Then ask your friends to communicate with you there. You don’t need them to quit the old, you need to ask them to use something new.
“privacy? Yeah whatever, they just use it to catch bad people right? I have nothing to hide. I don’t have the time to learn all this VPN stuff. Don’t forget to like my posts!”
Don’t forget to like my posts!”
FBI Likes This
People will still use discord even if it got entirely banned, there just isn’t a good alternative now that is clear
Not federated but a pretty good alternative coming up with Revolt - still has a good way to go though.
Revolt would be good, but they lack screen share, that really was the only reason why we didn’t keep using it
they lack screen share
While they do lack screen share, it is in active development. See https://github.com/revoltchat/backend/issues/313 Last work on that issue happened 4 days ago. I am not a dev of revolt.
Lol, what because you tried Matrix and it SUCKS on both client and server?
XMPP can have a whole ass facebook app built inside it called Movim and it can be accessed from any “homeserver”. It can be far more than Discord will ever want to be, if the cats can be herded
If you don’t use Matrix well I guess bc it’s ubiquitous among squishy Linux and leftist communities for some godawful reason despite being Israeli-developed, US state dept funded, and idiot-maintained. They even have a slot for it on these lemmy accounts
You talk like a prick
People don’t typically like change. It has to feel like it’s their decision to drive them there.
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
People can’t be convinced of anything, it’s a losing battle to try. The only way to get people to change is to live a certain way and if people admire it, then they ask you about it and you share.
So for example-I’m a minimalist and I really wished my sister would declutter because her place is overcrowded. But instead of trying to convince her, I just shared what my life normally was like. Eventually she asked me for help decluttering, and she felt a lot better about what I helped with. Now we share cleaning and organization tips.
For me, I just put in my insta bio I left for Pixelfed and to come friend me there.
I’ve told my friends I’m off insta because I’d rather be on a platform where I control my feed that’s ad free. And that I rarely see my friends content on insta so it doesn’t matter that much to me to have friends on there. If they get interested, great if not, I’m still happy.
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.
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. A reminder for in case you don’t know, if it starts to feel stale, then it’s probably because of your viewing settings. If you switch it from Active (ironically, the least active), to Hot, 6 hours, Scaled, etc. after you’ve gone through all of the new to you posts, you’ll see a lot more action.
Thanks for the tip!
All your chat history has been published to the fediverse now. Welcome to Lemmy.
Welcome!
Some tips:
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You can block other users, other communities, and other instances yourself; you don’t have to wait for the mods or admins to do that for you
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If a mod or an admin of an instance choose to block certain things that you disagree with, you can sign up for another instance with your same name, assuming nobody’s taken it; you won’t be able to transfer your comments, votes, or posts though; there’s been feedback given to the Lemmy devs about this
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Search by Everything and Active to see new posts show up in your feed daily
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There’s lots of diverse opinions on Lemmy, but they tend to concentrate around politics and tech; maybe consider starting your own community or instance if there’s something here you want to see!
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To use the Discord analogy, Lemmy instances are Discord communities, Lemmy communities are Discord channels, and users are just users; we’ll often write c/Whatever to refer to a community, but due to the Federated nature of Lemmy, you may find a community like c/Politics on multiple instances (like lemmy.world or lemmy.ml); not sure if the Lemmy devs have a fix for this
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Welcome to lemmy!
People don’t just stop using an app until there’s very little activity.
Getting people to use a new app, especially one they have little activity on is inconvenient, especially if you’re already checking WhatsApp, wechat, signal, telegram, LINE, Zalo, and discord because you have to many different friend groups.
Because their other friends are on them, and the celebrities they follow.
Threaten them with having to communicate with you using email - they’ll install Signal 😂
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.
Companies like Apple spent a lot to create a switching cost in almost every product. The “bubble” color is also a HUGE thing in the US, and is often times the sole reason for not wanting to leave iMessage.
Certainly, but installing additional messaging apps on a phone has almost no cost on either iPhone or Android. It’s interesting that iPhone users seem to dislike the idea more.
The having to do something is the cost, because they have a perfectly good messaging app already, “why can’t you just use that?”
And that cost is more on Apple’s platform because Apple has been designing it that way since the beginning. It’s the whole reason android users got a different color bubble, not because they had to, but it was a way to identify the person that wasn’t using an iPhone and make them stand out. Making it almost unimaginable to switch to Android for youth who care so much about not being “out” of the group.
And Google has identified this, and put a lot of cringe-worthy effort into addressing it at their Pixel event this time around.
they have a perfectly good messaging app already, “why can’t you just use that?”
Only running on one brand of phone would be the obvious reason here. Installing an additional app seems like a slightly smaller ask than buying a different phone.
As someone whose only apple devices are ipads, the big lockin isn’t imessage vs an SMS client. It’s FaceTime vs, Zoom/GMeet/Jitsi. Mind you, it is nice being able to use iMessage with my wife when I have internet, and then swap over to SMS quickly. Sure, my two devices don’t have a persistent conversation, but her device does.
FaceTime vs, Zoom/GMeet/Jitsi
Is the advantage availability among your contacts, or something about the UX?
Holistically it’s UX.
If my wife or others in my life who use Apple want to contact me, they don’t have to go into a specific app and hope that I’m looking at it. They can go into iMessage, click the camera, and poof, a video call starts up. The only software I use that does that otherwise is Discord, and that’s not integrated with SMS/MMS. It’s the connection too (which is just as much part of UX) - I’ve had problems with Zoom or others due to connection strength, but not with FaceTime.
The fact that it’s a “just-works” solution is important.
they don’t have to go into a specific app and hope that I’m looking at it
Do the others not ring your phone? I don’t video call often, but when I do it’s usually with Signal, and that definitely rings my phone.
No, my phone (Android) usually has notifications/ringers muted
This sounds like a pretty unusual configuration. I don’t imagine most people can be reached more reliably using an app that only runs on their tablet than apps that run on their phone.
Literally all of that UX is the same and better in other apps though.
For example, every single part of your description applies to video and text conversations with my SO and friends, except we all use Signal. It “just works”, and better than Facetime because it doesn’t matter what device my SO and friends have.
With Facetime it doesn’t “just work” at all with the large number of people I know who don’t have Apple. That’s a huge disadvantage which means that Facetime UX sucks.
Probably the idea of “all my other friends are on the mainstream platform so why would i move to another platform specifically for you?”
