Should we all be leaving WhatsApp?

I was asked this question recently by a friend (on WhatsApp, of course).

For those of you who’ve missed it, WhatsApp (owned by Facebook) recently sent a message to a segment of its users (note that this doesn’t apply to European and United Kingdom users) asking them to accept their latest privacy policy updates, which would share data like IP address, internet service provider, browser information, mobile network, phone number, and (in the future) payments through WhatsApp, with Facebook.

(Sidenote: the deadline for accepting the new policy has since been delayed by WhatsApp to 15 February 2021.)

When the news was announced, Elon Musk took to Twitter to tell people he uses messaging service Signal. Even ex-NSA employee and whistleblower, Edward Snowden, chimed in with why he uses Signal.

What is fascinating about all this is that the people I’ve spoken to don’t seem to realise that WhatsApp and Signal actually use the same end-to-end encryption technology to ensure that messages sent are, well, encrypted.

On the other hand, competitor Telegram does not offer end-to-end encryption by default - and yet, it still attracted almost 2.2 million downloads in the days following WhatsApp’s announcement.

At a time when people are becoming more aware of online privacy, the European Union is leading the charge in protecting civil liberties from infringements by big tech, and Apple and Facebook have been embroiled in a very public PR spat relating to Apple’s new privacy protection measures (where Apple retaliated against Facebook by pointedly saying it was “standing up for our users”), it’s remarkable that WhatsApp (and by association, Facebook) has made this decision.

The optics, in the current circumstances, are not ideal - especially in comparison to what is circulating around the Internet about Signal (full disclosure: I don’t think the ad below is real, but it’s gotten lots of traction).

The good news for WhatsApp is that, at least for now, it appears that some users will continue using the platform purely because of the inconvenience in trying to move friends, family, and chat groups to anywhere else.

This is known as consumer inertia - where customers continue paying for and/or using a product, even when superior options exist. And it may very well work. In the case of WhatsApp, consumer inertia is particularly high because it requires moving not just ourselves, but our entire network, to a new platform. For example, in my case, it’s not just about getting me and my mother off WhatsApp - it’s about getting the entire network of Asian aunties and uncles that she communicates with to agree to move as well.

Interestingly, the traditional model of capitalising on consumer inertia usually follows the pattern set out in this article:

Companies often internalize consumer inertia by setting pricing strategies that offer discounts to new customers. Both established firms and new market entrants frequently use introductory offers to accumulate customers and then raise prices later on, assuming customers will choose to stay over the cost of switching again.

But this isn’t quite the same here. I remember paying US$1 for WhatsApp when I switched to an iPhone, many years ago (and grumbling about it because it had been free on Android). In this case, unlike traditional models of, say doubling the subscription price the year after they’ve hooked you in, WhatsApp is instead asking us to pay the price of a sliver of our data. Naturally, to a company like Facebook that makes millions of dollars off advertising, this is worth more than the US$2 they could have gotten from me.

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