This is why I use Telegram as a "good-enough" alternative to the tech monopolies. No, you don't get E2EE without opting in (and Secret Chats don't exist at all for groups) but it's one of those products that makes joy in the hearts of anyone, enthusiast or no, who uses it. Its clients are fully open-source and the man behind it, Pavel Durov, is truy a hero in my book for his consistent stance against big powers, from state actors to tech giants.
I also selfhost a Matrix homeserver and bridge all-the-things to it, possibly its finest feature but there's no way any of its client implementations is going to spark joy in the hearts of the mainstream.
It's important, much like in our politics, to find the fine line between the extremes so that we can leverage and exploit good-enough choices for more freedom for everyone. I use Linux but for most people it's enough to at least get them to consider some FOSS alternatives in their Windows or macOS environments. We can use these small victories to chip away at the mortar of surveillance.
I will never, ever, return to Facebook products. The global damage wrought by that company will go down in the history books, I'm sure. So let's pick those things that are "good enough" as our chisels for a better future for all.
EDIT: Telegram has a chat export feature if you're a WhatsApp user considering the switch [1].
I've used the chat export feature of Telegram before deleting my WhatsApp account. It works well and convinced me to use Telegram over Signal in cases where I had contacts on both platforms.
(Personally, I'm also bitter that Signal Android supports backup while Signal iOS doesn't...and transferring from one iOS device to another isn't considered backup).
So others who find this comment someday have the full story, Pavel wrote a defense here [1]. I don't really see how he had a choice with the boot heel of Apple and Google always at his neck.
I also selfhost a Matrix homeserver and bridge all-the-things to it, possibly its finest feature but there's no way any of its client implementations is going to spark joy in the hearts of the mainstream.
It's important, much like in our politics, to find the fine line between the extremes so that we can leverage and exploit good-enough choices for more freedom for everyone. I use Linux but for most people it's enough to at least get them to consider some FOSS alternatives in their Windows or macOS environments. We can use these small victories to chip away at the mortar of surveillance.
I will never, ever, return to Facebook products. The global damage wrought by that company will go down in the history books, I'm sure. So let's pick those things that are "good enough" as our chisels for a better future for all.
EDIT: Telegram has a chat export feature if you're a WhatsApp user considering the switch [1].
[1] https://telegram.org/blog/move-history