No you shouldnt.

Its not selfish to convince your family to do what's in their own best interests.

why feel bad for suggesting objectively better software?

It's not selfish. Data protection protects THEM as well.

I'm on Signal, if someone wants to reach me they can find me there.

I'm okay with not being instantly available to dozens of people.

However i’ve been thinking and i feel like an asshole for making them switch.

You should definitely not feel like an asshole for getting them on a safer app. You moved them off a predatory app. That's good. I convinced my mom to get off Whatsapp because Meta kept trying to scam her into using the AI bullshit.

With Signal, it's just messages. No ads, nothing trying to trick you into doing something against your benefit. It's just messaging. That's all she cares about.

Asking someone to add an additional free messaging app is maybe a 2 out of 10 on the effort scale, where 1 is "hand me that thing that's next to you" and 10 is "give me one of your kidneys".

You shouldn't feel bad about asking anyone who claims to care about you for such a small favor even if it didn't benefit them, but as others have already mentioned, it does.

I've started replying to any meta site link with this sticker I found on signal

If people knew how meta treats their customers, then they won't (I hope) stay there.

Why shouldn’t they feel like “assholes” forcing you to use WhatsApp umin the first place? I quit WhatsApp years ago. Everyone I know uses either Signal or Telegram (still better than Meta).

Don’t overcomplicate things. Just stick to what you feel is right.

wife: I hate that every time we talk about stuff I get ads about it, it's too creepy.

me: move to signal, here's my singal ID

wife: *sigh mabye tomorrow

REPEAT ABOVE 30 times

wife ok, let me install it

wife: adding you

we never text, or fb, or anythig, just signal

no more creepy ads.

over here in America, we had a friend in our group that outright refused to switch to signal. Not to make it seem like it's the only factor, but that friend is no longer around, and we all use Signal.

Don't give up on Signal. I did the same with my friends and family years back (about 5 years ago) it's been great

https://wire.com/en/

https://briarproject.org/

https://delta.chat/

https://retroshare.cc/

https://github.com/FossifyOrg/Messages

https://www.linphone.org/en/

https://berty.tech/

..... etc.

all OpenSource and privacy focused/encrypted/P2P

I gave up on signal just because when I swapped none of my friends did, so therefore, there's no reason for me to use it because I'm just partying by myself.

Being said if you got people to actually go with you then I wouldn't feel bad about it because obviously they wouldn't have swapped if they didn't want to.

How about Matrix? (Element X)

It's not like you cut their phone wires, should they need it for something they can just use it (as sometimes it's unavoidable). But this way important and private stuff will remain as such, we don't want Zuckerbot to get a hold of grandma's secret recipe, do we?

no retreat, no surrender

You're doing them a favor by displacing some of the data that Meta would otherwise have on them

It's your right to avoid for-profit and invasive platforms (especially from companies famous for causing addictions and mental health problems), and it's their choice to switch if they want to communicate with you more easily. I'm in a similar boat with Discord.

If you leave them to choose between WhatsApp and Signal, they'll pick what they already have and what they're familiar with. I deleted WhatsApp after they introduced MetaAI, and told people close to me, that they could only message me using Signal going forward. Just make sure you support people that have difficulty installing and using the app. When removing malware from my grandma's smartphone, I also made sure to install Signal, and she now comfortably contacts me through it for minor things. It's not like you're inconveniencing them much: it's just an app installation and basic setup, while the workflow is nearly identical; especially if you allow them to find you through your phone number (which I have disabled).

OR carry on using WhatsApp on Beeper for now. https://www.beeper.com/ You can start using Signal and WhatsApp at the same time using Beeper, and start a slower transition by convincing your contacts to do the same.

No way

They say it's not an issue for them,

So you think your family and friends are liars and shouldn't be trusted?

You can leave the install both apps and use them both independent of each other. Signal for private conversations. WhatsApp for utility.

Signal is good. In the meantime, check out Prav.

https://prav.app/

Brother, using an open-source (free) messenger is good. Using proprietary, closed-source is bad. I deleted Whatsapp 1 year and a half ago. Told people they can find me on Signal or normal RCS/SMS messaging. Some came to Signal, the majority started contacting me on rcs/sms. However, now we can talk to Whatsapp people from an European messenger (Arnacon). Unlike BirdyChat and Haiket, it doesn't require to be downloaded only from Google Store. And I prefer it to Google-Google Messages.

It's not as easy to answer as all these comments suggest and especially when it come to contact with family and friends. Honestly you've done well to get some to switch but I would personally keep WhatsApp for now as backup and see how it goes with Signal.