dataexporter
Joined 5 years ago
Joined 5 years ago
The unfortunate reality is that most people won’t follow you. Not because they don’t respect you or your concerns, but because the cost—in effort, friction, or just breaking habitual patterns—is too high. Social coordination is fragile, and it leans heavily on lowest-common-denominator tools. WhatsApp has become that denominator.
What’s likely to happen is this: group chats will move on without you. Events will get planned. Conversations will unfold. People aren’t going to message you separately to accommodate your principled stand—not out of malice, but out of convenience and momentum. You’ll be increasingly left out, not because anyone wants to isolate you, but because ecosystems don't fracture easily.
After a few months of being disconnected and missing out, there’s a strong chance you’ll reinstall WhatsApp—not because you’ve changed your mind, but because opting out of a near-universal platform means opting out of modern social participation.
This isn’t a defeat of principle—it’s a reflection of how network effects work. The only way to realistically challenge something like WhatsApp is if a critical mass moves at once. Individual protest, while noble, often just leads to isolation unless it becomes collective action.
I had always been the organizer in my friend group organizing trips, meetups and would spend initiating conversations and discussion even in the group chats.
Due to certain life circumstances I had gradually stopped and the entire group actually fell apart except a few friends who lived in the same cities.
Your post actually gave me an impetus to reach out to a lot of the older groups and reconnect. Thank you.
If your objection to killing animals is strong enough there are millions of purely vegetarian recipes that are delicious and much more tastier than fake meat. Why not switch to those?
In a land of immigrants - having such a poor immigration process for highly skilled employees will only mean that the best and the brightest talent will no longer be interested in moving to the US when they could get treated much more fairly in other countries. The result will be the workforce will be filled with mediocre and sub-par talent who are willing to go through the painful delays in the immigration process.
I believe those who are popular content creators are also better at marketing and sales. Getting their work recognized means that their marketing talent is good and not necessarily their programming skill relative to other people who are doing the same.
When looking from that perspective - are you optimizing for hiring people with good programming skills or those with good marketing skill?