This past August I wrote a post titled “The Fall of Facebook and the Return to a Decentralized Internet.” In that article I suggested that Facebook’s many scandals would eventually lead them to fall. I believed I was right then and I believe even stronger that I am right now.
Why?
The news has been rife with Facebook’s move to merge Whatsapp, Instagram and Facebook messenger together. For those of us who are looking to jump the sinking Facebook ship this would be a good time. After all, Whatsapp is supposed to be encrypted, but if these services merge, who can believe that Facebook would not utilize its user’s data?
Messaging apps are a big part of our lives so it is understandable why Mark Zuckerberg would want to merge these services, however Facebook’s track record has been abysmal on user data protection, which is vital for messaging apps.
Most Facebook users looked the other way when the Cambridge Analytica broke. However, it still left a bad taste in most people’s mouths. WhatsApp, potentially becoming compromised could spell the end of Facebook’s hegemony over messaging platforms. Losing that would jeopardize Facebook’s commercial success, stunting its growth potential and aiding its fall.
So with your data about to be in even more trouble than previously thought, it’s time to think of alternatives to WhatsApp. These include: Signal, Telegram, Usecrypt, and Vibr, among others.
As Facebook continues to grapple with a magic formula to stop the bleeding of users, their latest move may ironically be the trigger which finally scares enough users away that would force Facebook to unwind and fade. All of this proves that Zuckerberg and team just don’t get it, people want privacy and are not willing to trade that away no matter the platform.