Ask HN: Why is Telegram Messenger not popular in US?

[tuyguntn]

Comparing to Whatsapp, Telegram has awesome performance, when someone sends you message and you have installed in >2 devices they are instantly updated, If I open message from one another device shows it as read instantly, blazingly fast for me syncing two devices in such speed.

Why is the Telegram Messenger not popular in US? ~60-70Mln users are small comparing to Whatsapp, WeChat, Line, Kakao, Kik.

[nostrademons]

Whatsapp is just barely becoming popular in the U.S, and WeChat, Line, and Kakao are basically non-existent. I hadn't even heard of the last 4 messenger programs you mentioned.

The reasons are pretty complicated, but I'd wager that it's largely because Apple, Google, Facebook, and SnapChat are all U.S. companies, and so iMessage, Hangouts, Facebook Messenger, and SnapChat are all perfectly adequate communication tools in the U.S. All of my friends use Hangouts, for example, because they're Google employees (except one who uses iMessage because he was the tech lead for iMessage). The only reason I'd even heard of Whatsapp is because a number of my wife's business school friends are from India.

Social software tends to be very regional, like how LiveJournal is huge in Russia, Orkut was big in Brazil in India but virtually unknown in the U.S, and the majority of Chinese are on some social network that most Americans have never heard of. It's not surprising that most Americans would use software developed by U.S. companies.

[wishinghand]

>I hadn't even heard of the last 4 messenger programs you mentioned.

(USA resident here). I'd say Kik is huge amongst young people. A lot of people also use it to message casual sex/booty calls on the side if they don't want to use their main texting app.

[tuyguntn]

WeChat, Line, and Kakao are basically non-existent.

Yes they are probably non-existent in US, but each of them have at least 200Mln users (WeChat >800Mln)

It's not surprising that most Americans would use software developed by U.S. companies.

Good point

[traviagio]

It took Whatsupp at least 6-7 years to get on the map in USA I would say. I remember the first time I installed it was during the BlackBerry messenger era when people wanted a nice iPhone but were freaking out about their BBMs. Telegram is awesome but it will take a long time until it goes mainstream if ever. That space is totally overcrowded now.

[hanniabu]

A bunch of my friends and I use Telegram and we're from the US and absolutely love it. Actually, every person I convince to switch to Telegram loves it and refuses to continue using Whatsapp and tries to get their friends to change as well because of that. Full platform support without those QR scanning, great library of stickers/emojies, they have open api chat bots, in-app gif and image searches, you can reply to messages to help maintain context, preview links in-app...there's really so many great benefits over Whatsapp, not to mention it's free.

[jordsmi]

I really wish Telegram or Whatsapp was more used. I stuck using kik which is such a terrible app. No web interface and if I need to sign into a different account I lose all chat history.

[Avalaxy]

Personally I don't use it because I really don't see how giving up my data to some shady Russian guy is better than handing it over to Facebook.