Ok I agree with all that sentiment, but in the article I only saw a $500 price drop, were they ever free or are you taking the world literally figuratively?
Yeah especially if you happen to be south of us in the Americas. America works very hard to make sure the current status quo is maintained. That status quo originally won by govt agencies on behalf of the political elite's rich friends.
Alan Tudyk is one of my favorite actors who I feel gets too little credit. He's hilarious and it seems he's always in some funny/weird role in live action but has a surprising list of credits when it comes to animated and especially Disney animated movies. Pretty sure he's been in almost every Disney animated movie of the last 15 years.
Beeper is free now and it's native chat is Matrix, but it also supports whatsapp, iMessage, and Signal along with Google RCS. It doesn't get rid of your WhatsApp entirely (unless you can switch your friends to Matrix) but it does seem like a good solution to at least consolidate all that stuff.
This is the real answer