How have others gotten friends/family to make the switch? I’ve been doing a cleanup of my digital life over the last year or so and am trying to move to using more privacy friendly alternatives where possible.
example: I’d love to switch to Signal only but everyone I know only uses WhatsApp. I’ve mentioned switching to people in the past but it’s always the same response (I don’t have anything to hide)
Signal is not much better than WhatsApp or any other walled garden messenger without provider choice. Don't waste your time and energy to move people to walled gardens. A better idea would be to use providers and apps that support the federated internet standard XMPP: https://joinjabber.org
Yes, the XSF has a very high bar what a standard is and what not, so the many protocol extensions are labeled experimental. However that doesn't mean implementations are "incomplete" or "insecure". OMEMO has good support nowadays and the implementation in Conversations has been independently audited.
Sorry but I've been burned by WhatsApp before. Not wasting time on moving my contacts to another walled garden again. XMPP is actively developed and has most privacy features Signal does + most providers don't require a phone number and let you connect over Tor. Doing things properly and in an interoperable way takes more time but is absolutely worth it: https://snikket.org/blog/products-vs-protocols/