HalloApp wants to become a privacy-conscious alternative to Facebook

We live in a century that is increasingly ruled by what felt like monopolies. If we intend to shop, many start at Amazon, if photos are to be shared, we first access Instagram from Facebook. Alternatives, on the other hand, rarely stand a chance, even if they offer at least the same functionality. The HalloApp social network would like to change that.

Because HalloApp is a mixture of Facebook, Instagram and WhatsApp, no wonder, as the two developers used to work for the latter company. If you start the app, you will see four different menu items: posts from friends, group chats, individual chats and, of course, the settings. In general, the design is kept very minimalist.

An important key point in the app is data protection. Friends can only be found if the phone number is known; all messages sent via the platform are encrypted by default. No algorithm should decide about visible content, and advertisements are just as unwelcome.

But how can the network even be financed? So far, this has been done on the basis of investors and their money. With the free offer, one would first like to lure users, later certain features could only be available to paying customers. So you pay with money, not with your data.

So far, the two founders Neeraj Arora and Michael Donohue have been holding back a little, they don’t want to attract too much attention during the early product phases. Arora was Managing Director at WhatsApp until 2018, while Donohue was responsible for software development. Both left the company after acquiring Facebook in 2019 and now want to do better than the blue giant.

Own opinion:

There are already some social networks that are both free and paid and that value privacy. So far, none of these has become a major competitor to Facebook, so it remains to be seen whether HalloApp can learn from this and accordingly increase the user base quickly and sustainably. After all, what is the point of a secure social network if nobody is using it?

Via The Verge