Telegram and xAI agreed a one-year deal to integrate Grok into the chat app; Telegram will get $300M in cash and equity from xAI and 50% of subscription revenue.
The problem is not that I'm not using signal (I am), its that I also have to use telegram and\or whatsapp if I want to contact anyone without sending them an sms, or a pigeon.
So all this bloat still affects me, whether I "just use signal" or not.
I'm not sure what part of the world you're in, so maybe there is a societal difference here, but last I checked, if you're running a business, it's not only run on chat apps. There are other venues to contact businesses to schedule things...
"Hello sorry for calling you, can you repair a part of an electric oven? It looks like a thingy with a couple springs. No I can't send you a photo on whatsapp, do you mind quickly installing signal? No? What about email? You're going to respond in 3-5 business day? Yeah sure I can survive that long on raw potatoes"
If you can afford existing without big tech, I'm honestly jealous. I'm willing to go quite far for my principles (like I have a phone with graphene) but at a certain point life just gets too difficult. I'm barely above water on my adult-ing as it is 🤷♀️