I have not found any news article on this on a whim. Because my friends and family, I need to use Facebook Messenger, and Messenger Lite was a OK client - lightweight, no unnecessary features, etc., compared to the regular Messenger app.

Now I’m a little torn, having a Meta app on my phone is already bad, but having to downgrade to the bloated Messenger app? Not sure I will make a change. What are your thoughts?

      • Zuberi 👀@lemmy.dbzer0.com
        6·
        1 year ago

        Texting still exists.

        Being spied on by facebook, microsoft, and google is not worth the risk to me personally.

        Again, who tf uses messenger?

            • MystikIncarnate@lemmy.caEnglish
              2·
              1 year ago

              Fair enough.

              Personally, I don’t like using 30 year old technology to communicate. I avoid phone calls and I generally avoid SMS and it’s derivatives.

              I work in IT and generally demand more from my messaging apps. I still avoid FB like the plague though.

            • MystikIncarnate@lemmy.caEnglish
              1·
              1 year ago

              Which are both not SMS/texting. I know iMessage falls back to SMS if the number doesn’t have iMessage, which is where the carrier spying comes in.

              Instead for iMessage, it’s Apple spying, and for signal it’s… Shrug

              • Rai@lemmy.dbzer0.com
                1·
                1 year ago

                I trust iMesssge’s e2e and Apple’s privacy a fuckovalot more than anything Facebook has ever made.

                • MystikIncarnate@lemmy.caEnglish
                  1·
                  1 year ago

                  That’s fine. I trust Google’s chat app more than SMS, and others, it’s all personal preference. The point of my comment was to demonstrate that no matter what you’re using, someone has your data and is likely selling it.

                  If you trust apple enough to use their service, all the power to you. If you trust signal/telegram/element/whatever, that’s cool too. But no matter what service you’re using, if it’s a free public service, your data is the product. It is, in all likelihood, being sold to someone somewhere.

                  It’s a personal choice for how much risk you’re willing to accept on that front. Bluntly, I don’t think anyone should trust FB or any of suckerberg’s properties. Everyone else is varying levels of shit. Some much worse than others… The decisions made beyond that point are personal.

                  And frankly, if someone almost exclusively uses FB messenger, it says to me that they don’t give any shits about their data or what happens to it. Everything else, meh. There’s good and bad from most companies, some are doing better (signal, as an example, seems to be doing pretty good), others, not so great… Meh.

        • AndreTelevise@lemm.ee
          7·
          1 year ago

          In our country, texting (through the built-in Messenger app) is mostly done as an emergency measure, as most people here use Meta’s other messaging app, WhatsApp.

      • regalia@literature.cafe
        2·
        1 year ago

        They all have phone numbers you can text and they don’t need to install another app or sign up for anything at least. But I understand when they prefer it and you have a fb account anyways.

        • cnnrduncan@beehaw.orgEnglish
          8·
          1 year ago

          Good luck sending photos or holding a video call with the scant 1100 bits provided by an SMS message…

        • teawrecks@sopuli.xyz
          1·
          1 year ago

          Sharing media over MMS is a garbage experience. I would need to convince them to use something reasonable, which is a lost cause.

      • jarfil@beehaw.org
        6·
        1 year ago

        Over 3 billion users combined.

        So, to answer your question: “Nearly everybody.”

        That’s overly dramatic, we’re over 8 billion already… so it’s “Nearly half of everybody” 😜

      • Zuberi 👀@lemmy.dbzer0.com
        3·
        1 year ago

        Africa makes more sense. Imperialist nations want to influence the entire continent if possible.

        USA, China, and Russia are all vying over the global-south like vultures

    • Kazumara@feddit.de
      5·
      1 year ago

      Australians apparently. That’s what my cousins said as the explanation for why their family chat was on Facebook.

      • dan@upvote.au
        4·
        1 year ago

        Messenger is the most popular messaging app in Australia by far. #2 is Apple/Facetime (which is about equal with WhatsApp in terms of market share) but there’s a huge gap between #1 and #2.

    • Kilgore Trout@feddit.itEnglish
      4·
      1 year ago

      Living in western Europe I would have said no one, but in most of central and eastern Europe is strictly necessary to reach anyone.