Relevant again: How to Leave Dying Social Media Platforms.

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I've been trying for weeks to get friends to move to Signal. They don't have to delete WhatsApp or Facebook Messenger to use Signal. Some of these people have got degrees in various computer disciplines and still won't even give it a try. I don't understand the reluctance to try new software either. If their job or uni asks them to use a piece of software they'll try it no bother but if a friend asks it's impossible. It's so strange.

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Their life would be easier if you didn't use Signal, simple as.

I don't agree with it, but that's the reason.

There's an xkcd about this: https://xkcd.com/1810/

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Consider that we live in a world where Trump was elected twice and you'll start to get an idea of what the issue is

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As the only Android user in a social group of iPhone users I felt this way too much.

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You can forward yourself iMessages from a mac via bluebubbles

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So just buy a mac. Got it.

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I see some older mac minis on eBay for $50-75. But yeah you'd need a mac

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Your life must be hard now, right?
At every corner of every street, at every TV station, in the faces of others you must see the guy that you hate and you can't do anything about it.

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I think it depends on how you use those different sites

I transitioned from Reddit to Lemmy pretty seamlessly like you did. Around the time it became clear they weren't backing down on the API thing and other bullshit, I looked up some reddit alternatives, chose Lemmy, and kept right on doing what I was doing on Reddit.

On the other hand, I'm having a bit of a hard time ditching Facebook.

The difference is I know the people I'm friends with on Facebook, I have actual relationships with them, I'm there to interact with those specific people. Leaving Facebook without finding a decent alternative and getting those people to switch with me (which probably means they'd also have to convince their other friends to switch too) means losing contact with those people.

On Reddit and now Lemmy, I'm basically here to read articles and have conversations with strangers about those articles. I don't really form lasting relationships here, I don't recognize usernames outside of maybe 2 or 3 big names. If they weren't full of the worst kinds of idiots, trolls, bots, and scammers I could pretty much get what I'm looking for from the comment section on a news site.

Some people do build those kinds of relationships here though, they come to Reddit or Lemmy, at least in part, to interact with specific users and communities that they have some sort of connection to, and when you have connections like that, it gets pretty hard to leave that platform. Unless all of your friends leave at the same time and go to the same platform, you need to either lose some friends, split your time between the two platforms (neither of which may be as good as what you had because not everyone is there) or you have to find some other way of staying in touch and keeping the friendship going (which is often much easier said than done)

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I've had some luck getting some of my people to switch over by asking them to switch as a favor to me specifically (if they want to of course... And they can always just not use it if they end up not liking it).

Asking them in a more direct way like this seems to work, even if there's some reluctance at first. I tell them that it helps me out because I can also send stuff to them on my computer, which is true. Then there's the fact that I just really like all of the extra features it has (it's just a really good chat app in general), emoji replies, reply quotes, and read receipts to name a few.

If they need any other reasons, the last things I tend to get into are the privacy/security aspects.

Boom, all of a sudden they're using something better, and even though they're probably still using those other (shit) apps, at least I don't have to. You have to start somewhere, right?

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Life will be harder for everyone

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A lot of people don't seem to get that social media services are almost entirely about their userbases, not their companies. Facebook and Meta are unbelievably terrible, but that is where most of the people you know can be found. Switching to something else is easy, but pointless, if your reason for being there is the people.

I have slowly convinced friends and family to begin using MeWe, but only a small number. And most of them still primarily use Facebook. At least recent events are pushing a few more away from it.

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How does it connect to your phone number?

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There's a guide in their subreddit. I was never able to get it to work (set it up like 4 years ago) so I just give iPhone users my apple ID when I'm putting in my phone number

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Relevant again: How to Leave Dying Social Media Platforms.