I recently had the same experience with two social groups: they sounded like something I'd like to be involved with. I got excited about them. But they use WhatsApp, so that's the end of that.

đź”—An Aside: Meta

WhatsApp is a hard pass for me because I have for years—and likely forever will—boycott Meta. No Facebook, no Instagram, no Threads, no Meta Quest, and no WhatsApp. Meta collects data on everything and manipulates user behavior to sell ads and maximize engagement. Even though WhatsApp messages are end-to-end encrypted, the metadata about who you talk to and when/where/etc. is still fed into Meta's advertising platform. No thanks.

đź”—Local WhatsApp Groups

The first group was newly formed and hadn't even settled on a communication platform yet, and initially decided on WhatsApp despite my objections. This is understandable in general since lots of people use it and it probably is a good way to encourage group communication. However, the group in question is Alameda Unplugged. One of their stated goals is "No Social Media Before 16". They recognize the harms caused by Facebook and others, but are apparently fine with using Meta's other properties for their own communication. To me, this feels like cognitive dissonance. Fortunately, they seem to have backed off the WhatsApp direction and have stuck with communicating via email.

The second group is Alameda Dads, a group for discussion of various topics related to life in Alameda. This sounds nice! They've got sub-groups for board games and book clubs etc. But, again, they use WhatsApp. This isn't as unreasonable as the Alameda Unplugged example, and it's better than the platform they used before (Facebook Messenger! The horror). But I guess I expected that any local groups with any awareness of Big Tech as a problem at all would be shy about moving to a service run by a company that views the world as data to be mined and people as eyeballs to be monetized.

But maybe I'm the weird one.