What surprises me is that while WhatsApp has become an "everything" app in many parts of the world, much like WeChat in China, it has not done so in the US. In fact, I don't know anyone in the US who uses WhatsApp "internally" (the only times I use it is to communicate with people outside the US).
The description of WhatsApp here is exactly what Elon wanted X to become (which clearly didn't and almost certainly now won't happen). But I'm curious as to why such as "super-app" hasn't taken root in the US like it has elsewhere.
This is why travel is so important -- it gets us out of our bubbles.
Once I was brainstorming with a German colleague about a new business chat feature, and he said we should target WhatsApp as a channel. My American colleagues were like, "No one uses that these days."
But Americans have little idea how popular WhatsApp really is in Europe, and Brazil (where it's colloquially called Zappy Zappy), and vast swaths of the world. The American experience isn't as normative as we assume. I only know this because I'm part of a diaspora network and I have contacts from all over the world -- FB Messenger and iMessage are not as popular as we think outside of certain high GDP countries.
Conversely, some suggested targeting iOS in Germany, but my German colleague immediately said that iOS marketshare in Germany is actually fairly low. That surprised me but he was right.
I'm reasonably confident WhatsApp never caught on in the USA because most American phone plans had unlimited SMS in the early 2010s when WhatsApp's popularity was growing elsewhere. International messaging was probably also a big driver in Europe, but less relevant in other markets.
Hi, I am one of the editors of this story, and we have also thought about this. In my opinion, one of the reasons why WhatsApp hasn't become the "everything app" in the US is because Apple/iOS devices are very popular in the country, where as in much of the world, Android is popular thanks to the availability of cheaper devices. Apple offers a suit of apps and features, including Facetime, that's not available for Android users, which adds to the popularity of WhatsApp.
Payments. The sticky part of "everything" app is the payments platform. With a payments platform you have a internal "funded" ecosystem. Anybody who can not take payments from the "everything" app has a incentive to get inside so they can get paid. In many countries, the "everything" app contains, what in the US would be called, a bank.
This is basically illegal in the USA. US Banks are extremely stringently regulated to the point where many international banks do not even want to take US customers because that would subject them to US laws about banks. That is how insanely challenging it is for literal banks with decades of past and current experience to manage the regulations. "Move fast and break things" would get "Go directly to jail, do not pass go". Even money transmitter licenses like Paypal and Venmo are extremely challenging. And even those companies try really hard to make sure they do not get classified as a bank.
Trying to graft on a social platform onto a bank or a money transmitter would make the entire social platform subject to bank/money transmitter business restrictions which is almost certainly doomed legally. It is not like these companies do not know to add payments, it is just so insanely hard that even the 900 pound gorillas do not want to mess with Godzilla.
It’s the first time I hear that Whatsapp is already an everything app. Ive used Whatsapp for about 14 years or so on a daily basis as my main app. But it’s just chat for me, and about 30% of my non-professional calls. And I use the share location feature a lot when meeting friends. But that’s about it.
But banking, social media, ID/login, maps, albums, browsing etc I all do outside of whatsapp.
Honestly, it was just what it enabled. U.S. had cheap/free texting, so the network effect of just staying where you are was huge. Outside the US, there was only expensive texting so there was a latent need.
A friend asked me to use it first. She's not a techie, but she wasn't earning much and my first instinct was a mild annoyance that she was being cheap and trying to get me to use this other weird thing. What I had "worked" and had everyone on it. But ok, I'll try it. Became an early-ish adopter, spoke with her and a few people, over time it grew and utterly replaced texts. For friends, work, groups. If you try texting there, you're a dinosaur. We had no sense of social stigma of blue/green ticks. Everyone had the same ticks.
Moved to Australia and now I have to check. It's mostly WhatsApp but still some texts, and I have to check if someone is on WhatsApp rather than assume. Once or twice I've had to send on both channels. But there are WhatsApp groups everywhere, so no idea why this texting thing is still alive.
Notice and compare your own instincts when you read this. You might have the opposite reaction depending on where you are.
And for startups, it's whether you can land and enable a benefit before the existing company builds it. Speed vs distribution. Texting was so big a source of revenue that the local network providers kept the price high and basically lost it all. They could have dropped the price to where network effects prevented movement. The comfort of having the buttons and features and network where you expect them is massive.
For one, in other countries, people are perfectly okay with doing real business over a messaging app. I saw a doctor in Indonesia once and everything from appointment scheduling to follow up with the doctor was done on WhatsApp. They were okay sending medical tests, records, and bills on WhatsApp as well.
In China, same thing, on WeChat.
In the US, they want you to register some stupid MyHealth thing, sign some paper documents, and mail follow up shit to your residential address. They won't give you medical records on anything other than a fucking CD-ROM, even in 2024. Somehow in the US, a messaging app isn't "official" enough, and there's going to be the one first amendment brat* that doesn't want to install WhatsApp for privacy reasons.
* I say this jokingly, and do think we need to be harsher on corporations. However, my point is that in collectivist countries like Indonesia/China, if you don't install WhatsApp/WeChat or whatever is the chosen national app, you'll be the outcast and nobody will help you. The collectivist societies tend to embrace these apps for their convenience, rather than question their terms and conditions.
>But I'm curious as to why such as "super-app" hasn't taken root in the US like it has elsewhere.
because there's a lot more traditional banking and business infrastructure in the US or Europe than there is in China or India, so the latter just leapfrogged over it and the experience of using Alipay or running your business of Whatsapp is just much better than any legacy institution in those countries. People in countries with more established ways of doing things are both too used to and don't have that much of an incentive to switch because most stuff works sort of okay.
Same reason why WhatsApp adoption itself is lower in the US and sms based messaging held out so long. The US had cheap sms plans earlier so people were less eager to switch while everyone else just jumped to internet based messaging.
When Facebook bought WhatsApp, either Facebook or WhatsApp was the top social network in just about every country. It was a critical purchase for Facebook that locked out competitors globally for years. I can’t find the map now; if anyone knows what I’m talking about I hope they can share it.
Free or cheap texting hamstrung WhatsApp’s growth in some countries like the US. It was better in countries where cell plans were expensive because data didn’t meter per communication like SMS and WhatsApp was efficient.
This isn't really what an "everything app" is. WhatsApp is a chat app (+ some barebones community stuff, which Telegram and Discord also have).
To be an everything app, it needs to have, at the very least, a built-in payment system, fully featured social media content (ie. proper feeds and comments, at least on the level of Twitter), and non-trivial integration with other apps, businesses, and/or government entities. (This isn't even getting into eg. paying rent, ordering takeout, playing games, etc.)
Calling WhatsApp is just kind of missing the point of the definition.
> The description of WhatsApp here is exactly what Elon wanted X to become
I don't know what an "everything app" is, but that's not my experience with WhatsApp in Europe. It's just how you text or call everyone or businesses, but there's no payments or anything else going on beyond perhaps the occasional business chatbot. But even then, most 'businesses' I interact with over WhatsApp is just some person with a phone.
Being the rare American Android person, I use it, Signal and Telegram to communicate with Iphone people since IMessage SMS integration is badly crippled.
I'm in a place where WhatsApp is everywhere - "call/text me" is basically assumed to mean call or send me a message on WhatsApp.
But, somehow I don't view it as a "cultural force" the way other social media sites are.
I guess because it's just people talking/chatting/sending-pics with their contacts, so there's no algorithm driving/changing peoples' behavior. It's like the cultural force of everyone having cell phones with free (and improved) SMS (which of course is a big change in society).
I've also never used WA to meet people, engage with strangers, or try to impress strangers. It's just people I've met in real life.
Although, a lot of this article is about the broadcast and "channels" features that I don't really use.
WhatsApp is basically a conduit or utility at this point. It's a more usable layer on top of raw TCP/IP. Its completely unlike any of the social media services, even telegram.
I agree, there is nothing cultural about it. I think its because there are no "discovery" features. You cant search for groups or people or whatever. You need to know someone well enough that they have your mobile number, in order to invite you to social groups etc.
Whatsapp is such a big cultural force that many of my non technical friends and family members refuse to use anything else. No mail for full res photos is one thing, but you can't make them use anything else. Everything lives in Whatsapp. Todos, notes, reminders, sharing stuff (airdrop is the only exception if everyone involved has iOS). It is less because of whatsapp features (Nobody uses any features like payments), and more because of the simplicity and ease of use.
Hey, I am one of the editors on this story, and we had the same question. Sharing with you a separate story from this package that explains the math/finance of WhatsApp. Hope this answers your question: https://restofworld.org/2024/how-whatsapp-for-business-chang...
They bought WhatsApp to keep businesses on Facebook and to prevent it from being an actual "everything app", though in the end they started offering WhatsApp Business anyway.
Driving force with 20-30 somethings in early Whatsapp days in Europe was simply the first viable group messaging and sharing photos.
And the simplicity of onboarding! It immediately checked all your contacts to see who uses whatsapp. All other apps used usernames and invites. This worked immediately.
It worked on both phones, so everyone could join the group.
Free SMS was ok, but operators offered typical packages 500,1000 or 3000 free /month so it wasn’t an issue for anyone with a job. But for some it was great.
Combine these three factors and it spread like wildfire in few years.
Free international messages/calls as well. That's how most of my friends and I started using it: studying abroad is pretty common in Europe with Erasmus, or even simply vacationing.
Before that, we were using Skype, but I remember WhatsApp being so much more convenient/better, especially on mobile.
If it would have been very costly to send an SMS/call a different US state, I bet WhatsApp would have taken in the US.
Another reason that the article and other comments here are missing is the zero-rating deals that WhatsApp has with virtually all mobile providers, at least in Mexico. Your phone's plan will cover calls and an internet connection up to a certain data cap, but WhatsApp's data usage is uncapped. So, if you want to chat with a less mainstream app you'd end up paying more.
Whatsapp is the only app (or any piece of software for that matter) you will actually see embedded in the physical world, in the form of street signs for neighborhood watch groups.
Very unfortunate given its now part of an adtech conglomerate. The defacto messaging app for such uses should be Signal.
I see many people in this thread thinking that WhatsApp took off because of SMS costs, and while that may be true in some countries, at least here in Finland I think the biggest factor were group chats. By 2013-2014 basically every high school and college class had their own whatsapp group chat since it made sharing of videos/photos and keeping in touch with everyone so much easier. By 2017 i'd say the vast majority of smartphone users under 60 years old were using whatsapp and nowadays even my almost 90-year old grandma uses it primarily for video calls and to receive photos/videos.
This got me wondering if people in US do not typically have such group chats or whats the alternative?
I live in California. For me, group chats are predominantly iMessage. FaceTime for video chat. I only know a handful of people with Android phones and they just suffer with poor quality media.
I suspect it’s both regionally and class dependent however.
WhatsApp in India is inescapable, but also quite useful, primarily because of network effects. But you really have to be careful and sparing with it, else it becomes a nuisance. Thankfully they've done some work to that effect.
Example, adding an option to have to seek your permission to join a particular group is a godsend, since family members are all too happy to add you to their group where every post is a nonsensical forward, or random people add you to their "investments" group (pump and dump schemes). Also, considering the scale of WhatsApp, I get far fewer spam than I get in direct phone/SMS communication. Also I can block businesses permanently if they start abusing their messaging privileges.
I just wish they had kept it a more chat-focused platform rather than adding other stuff (channels, status, AI agents, etc). It's a pain that I can't disable features I don't need (eg. I don't want to use Meta AI, but I still have to see that annoying icon). But it's Meta, and they don't necessarily respect people not wanting something, so don't think you can do much about it.
I was surprised when I returned to the US that not everybody uses WhatsApp. I was also using WeChat a lot in Asia. What has become very powerful in my opinion, and it used a lot by larger groups is Telegram.
This is the problem I keep mentioning with the very poor definition of "social media".
You wouldn't have said old flip phone was a social media, even if effectively whatsapp does the same stuff.
There is a big difference between an app pushing you toward "brand yourself" and with algorithm-controlled content and a contacting-app with none of the previous stuff.
Yes, they are both "social" in the sense that they allow us to reach other humans, but that's where it ends.
I'm sure there are features I don't know about whatsapp though.
I feel like I am missing something. It is a chat app, one of many, with some features like communities (which feel like extremely large groups) and status updates (which almost every other app does).
I use WhatsApp because all my family and friends are on it. We’re all on it because it’s the dominant chat network in the UK.
It might seem like SMS must be an option because everyone has it, because if you have WA then you’ve got a number and can receive SMS, but that’s not how people view it. SMS is an app like every other (to most people), but it’s an app that doesn’t have their other chats in (only 2FA codes and spam), and one that mostly doesn’t sync to their other devices as well.
I still feel like WhatsApp had a stronger position to do better in both developing countries and developed countries. But for some reason unknown, it did not roll out plans and positions fast enough.
While WhatsApp started as a way to set status ("Can't talk, text only", "Urgent calls only", "At school", "Busy"), the eventual razor-sharp focus by Jan Koum & Brian Acton to replace SMS (not MSN/Y! Messenger, not BBM, not IRC), in my eyes, made it the juggernaut that it became, inspite of the many regional/global clones.
- No logins. No sign-ups. Mobile phone number was the username; SIM card, the password.
- No central database of messages. No backup & restore. No stickers. No web-based access. Only fast text-based relays. For phones.
- Aggressive cross platform focus. Including clients for Blackberry & Symbian, not just mainstream OSes.
- Little to no perceptible downtime. Worked just fine in all sorts of flaky networks. Consistently and reliably.
- No ads, no spam.
- As cheap or cheaper than SMS (£1/yr), but works & roams globally.
- Voice notes and media to expand beyond the Anglosphere.
Another tidbit I find interesting: Jan used the fact that every time an app's title / description was changed, it would show up at the top in the "new" category of the iOS App Store, to help reach a wider install base.
In short, being laid off from Yahoo! to being rejected by Facebook, brought the best out of Jan & Brian. They ran a very unconventional SV startup and got a lot of the details exactly and deliberately right. Not many stood a chance, as evidenced by their eventual £22bn exit.
Even if it were an open source app with open governance, the shaping of culture happens at a different layer. And that shaping sometimes is guided and not in the best interest of the users.
[+] [-] insane_dreamer|1 year ago|reply
The description of WhatsApp here is exactly what Elon wanted X to become (which clearly didn't and almost certainly now won't happen). But I'm curious as to why such as "super-app" hasn't taken root in the US like it has elsewhere.
[+] [-] wenc|1 year ago|reply
Once I was brainstorming with a German colleague about a new business chat feature, and he said we should target WhatsApp as a channel. My American colleagues were like, "No one uses that these days."
But Americans have little idea how popular WhatsApp really is in Europe, and Brazil (where it's colloquially called Zappy Zappy), and vast swaths of the world. The American experience isn't as normative as we assume. I only know this because I'm part of a diaspora network and I have contacts from all over the world -- FB Messenger and iMessage are not as popular as we think outside of certain high GDP countries.
Conversely, some suggested targeting iOS in Germany, but my German colleague immediately said that iOS marketshare in Germany is actually fairly low. That surprised me but he was right.
https://www.statista.com/statistics/461900/android-vs-ios-ma...
Even France, with its reputation for liking premium products, does not have a high iOS market share.
Japan does have a very high iOS market share however because they appreciate craftsmanship, and due to Softbank's efforts in the country.
I remember the early days of WhatsApp -- it was the non-SMS messaging platform of choice in an era when phone plans changed for texting.
[+] [-] Zak|1 year ago|reply
[+] [-] itikasp|1 year ago|reply
[+] [-] Veserv|1 year ago|reply
This is basically illegal in the USA. US Banks are extremely stringently regulated to the point where many international banks do not even want to take US customers because that would subject them to US laws about banks. That is how insanely challenging it is for literal banks with decades of past and current experience to manage the regulations. "Move fast and break things" would get "Go directly to jail, do not pass go". Even money transmitter licenses like Paypal and Venmo are extremely challenging. And even those companies try really hard to make sure they do not get classified as a bank.
Trying to graft on a social platform onto a bank or a money transmitter would make the entire social platform subject to bank/money transmitter business restrictions which is almost certainly doomed legally. It is not like these companies do not know to add payments, it is just so insanely hard that even the 900 pound gorillas do not want to mess with Godzilla.
[+] [-] NoLinkToMe|1 year ago|reply
But banking, social media, ID/login, maps, albums, browsing etc I all do outside of whatsapp.
[+] [-] richardw|1 year ago|reply
A friend asked me to use it first. She's not a techie, but she wasn't earning much and my first instinct was a mild annoyance that she was being cheap and trying to get me to use this other weird thing. What I had "worked" and had everyone on it. But ok, I'll try it. Became an early-ish adopter, spoke with her and a few people, over time it grew and utterly replaced texts. For friends, work, groups. If you try texting there, you're a dinosaur. We had no sense of social stigma of blue/green ticks. Everyone had the same ticks.
Moved to Australia and now I have to check. It's mostly WhatsApp but still some texts, and I have to check if someone is on WhatsApp rather than assume. Once or twice I've had to send on both channels. But there are WhatsApp groups everywhere, so no idea why this texting thing is still alive.
Notice and compare your own instincts when you read this. You might have the opposite reaction depending on where you are.
And for startups, it's whether you can land and enable a benefit before the existing company builds it. Speed vs distribution. Texting was so big a source of revenue that the local network providers kept the price high and basically lost it all. They could have dropped the price to where network effects prevented movement. The comfort of having the buttons and features and network where you expect them is massive.
[+] [-] dheera|1 year ago|reply
In China, same thing, on WeChat.
In the US, they want you to register some stupid MyHealth thing, sign some paper documents, and mail follow up shit to your residential address. They won't give you medical records on anything other than a fucking CD-ROM, even in 2024. Somehow in the US, a messaging app isn't "official" enough, and there's going to be the one first amendment brat* that doesn't want to install WhatsApp for privacy reasons.
* I say this jokingly, and do think we need to be harsher on corporations. However, my point is that in collectivist countries like Indonesia/China, if you don't install WhatsApp/WeChat or whatever is the chosen national app, you'll be the outcast and nobody will help you. The collectivist societies tend to embrace these apps for their convenience, rather than question their terms and conditions.
[+] [-] Barrin92|1 year ago|reply
because there's a lot more traditional banking and business infrastructure in the US or Europe than there is in China or India, so the latter just leapfrogged over it and the experience of using Alipay or running your business of Whatsapp is just much better than any legacy institution in those countries. People in countries with more established ways of doing things are both too used to and don't have that much of an incentive to switch because most stuff works sort of okay.
Same reason why WhatsApp adoption itself is lower in the US and sms based messaging held out so long. The US had cheap sms plans earlier so people were less eager to switch while everyone else just jumped to internet based messaging.
[+] [-] 1123581321|1 year ago|reply
Free or cheap texting hamstrung WhatsApp’s growth in some countries like the US. It was better in countries where cell plans were expensive because data didn’t meter per communication like SMS and WhatsApp was efficient.
WhatsApp isn’t an everything app like WeChat.
[+] [-] Mond_|1 year ago|reply
To be an everything app, it needs to have, at the very least, a built-in payment system, fully featured social media content (ie. proper feeds and comments, at least on the level of Twitter), and non-trivial integration with other apps, businesses, and/or government entities. (This isn't even getting into eg. paying rent, ordering takeout, playing games, etc.)
Calling WhatsApp is just kind of missing the point of the definition.
[+] [-] madeofpalk|1 year ago|reply
I don't know what an "everything app" is, but that's not my experience with WhatsApp in Europe. It's just how you text or call everyone or businesses, but there's no payments or anything else going on beyond perhaps the occasional business chatbot. But even then, most 'businesses' I interact with over WhatsApp is just some person with a phone.
[+] [-] narrator|1 year ago|reply
[+] [-] deergomoo|1 year ago|reply
[+] [-] ks2048|1 year ago|reply
But, somehow I don't view it as a "cultural force" the way other social media sites are.
I guess because it's just people talking/chatting/sending-pics with their contacts, so there's no algorithm driving/changing peoples' behavior. It's like the cultural force of everyone having cell phones with free (and improved) SMS (which of course is a big change in society).
I've also never used WA to meet people, engage with strangers, or try to impress strangers. It's just people I've met in real life.
Although, a lot of this article is about the broadcast and "channels" features that I don't really use.
[+] [-] beAbU|1 year ago|reply
I agree, there is nothing cultural about it. I think its because there are no "discovery" features. You cant search for groups or people or whatever. You need to know someone well enough that they have your mobile number, in order to invite you to social groups etc.
[+] [-] crop_rotation|1 year ago|reply
[+] [-] titanomachy|1 year ago|reply
[+] [-] RustySpottedCat|1 year ago|reply
[+] [-] exabrial|1 year ago|reply
What’s their profit model here anyway?
[+] [-] itikasp|1 year ago|reply
[+] [-] kobalsky|1 year ago|reply
SMS providers are unreliable and expensive, it's eating their business.
[+] [-] bonzini|1 year ago|reply
A lot of this became public from FTC vs Meta: https://www.businessinsider.com/ftc-facebook-lawsuit-makes-z...
[+] [-] noprocrasted|1 year ago|reply
That's why it insists so badly on having full access to your contacts.
[+] [-] robertlagrant|1 year ago|reply
[+] [-] MangoCoffee|1 year ago|reply
users data, perhaps? your data feed into FB's machine. I'm sure they will figured out how to make money.
[+] [-] insane_dreamer|1 year ago|reply
[+] [-] humptybumpty|1 year ago|reply
Driving force with 20-30 somethings in early Whatsapp days in Europe was simply the first viable group messaging and sharing photos.
And the simplicity of onboarding! It immediately checked all your contacts to see who uses whatsapp. All other apps used usernames and invites. This worked immediately.
It worked on both phones, so everyone could join the group.
Free SMS was ok, but operators offered typical packages 500,1000 or 3000 free /month so it wasn’t an issue for anyone with a job. But for some it was great.
Combine these three factors and it spread like wildfire in few years.
[+] [-] Leherenn|1 year ago|reply
Before that, we were using Skype, but I remember WhatsApp being so much more convenient/better, especially on mobile.
If it would have been very costly to send an SMS/call a different US state, I bet WhatsApp would have taken in the US.
[+] [-] marc_abonce|1 year ago|reply
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zero-rating
[+] [-] notyourwork|1 year ago|reply
[+] [-] openrisk|1 year ago|reply
Very unfortunate given its now part of an adtech conglomerate. The defacto messaging app for such uses should be Signal.
[+] [-] Evidlo|1 year ago|reply
[+] [-] Stagnant|1 year ago|reply
This got me wondering if people in US do not typically have such group chats or whats the alternative?
[+] [-] erikpukinskis|1 year ago|reply
I suspect it’s both regionally and class dependent however.
[+] [-] dang|1 year ago|reply
How WhatsApp for business changed the world - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42366753 - Dec 2024 (163 comments)
[+] [-] sometimes_all|1 year ago|reply
Example, adding an option to have to seek your permission to join a particular group is a godsend, since family members are all too happy to add you to their group where every post is a nonsensical forward, or random people add you to their "investments" group (pump and dump schemes). Also, considering the scale of WhatsApp, I get far fewer spam than I get in direct phone/SMS communication. Also I can block businesses permanently if they start abusing their messaging privileges.
I just wish they had kept it a more chat-focused platform rather than adding other stuff (channels, status, AI agents, etc). It's a pain that I can't disable features I don't need (eg. I don't want to use Meta AI, but I still have to see that annoying icon). But it's Meta, and they don't necessarily respect people not wanting something, so don't think you can do much about it.
[+] [-] Beijinger|1 year ago|reply
[+] [-] Fire-Dragon-DoL|1 year ago|reply
You wouldn't have said old flip phone was a social media, even if effectively whatsapp does the same stuff.
There is a big difference between an app pushing you toward "brand yourself" and with algorithm-controlled content and a contacting-app with none of the previous stuff. Yes, they are both "social" in the sense that they allow us to reach other humans, but that's where it ends.
I'm sure there are features I don't know about whatsapp though.
[+] [-] elAhmo|1 year ago|reply
[+] [-] danpalmer|1 year ago|reply
I use WhatsApp because all my family and friends are on it. We’re all on it because it’s the dominant chat network in the UK.
It might seem like SMS must be an option because everyone has it, because if you have WA then you’ve got a number and can receive SMS, but that’s not how people view it. SMS is an app like every other (to most people), but it’s an app that doesn’t have their other chats in (only 2FA codes and spam), and one that mostly doesn’t sync to their other devices as well.
[+] [-] unknown|1 year ago|reply
[deleted]
[+] [-] nashashmi|1 year ago|reply
[+] [-] gnabgib|1 year ago|reply
[+] [-] ignoramous|1 year ago|reply
- No logins. No sign-ups. Mobile phone number was the username; SIM card, the password.
- No central database of messages. No backup & restore. No stickers. No web-based access. Only fast text-based relays. For phones.
- Aggressive cross platform focus. Including clients for Blackberry & Symbian, not just mainstream OSes.
- Little to no perceptible downtime. Worked just fine in all sorts of flaky networks. Consistently and reliably.
- No ads, no spam.
- As cheap or cheaper than SMS (£1/yr), but works & roams globally.
- Voice notes and media to expand beyond the Anglosphere.
Another tidbit I find interesting: Jan used the fact that every time an app's title / description was changed, it would show up at the top in the "new" category of the iOS App Store, to help reach a wider install base.
In short, being laid off from Yahoo! to being rejected by Facebook, brought the best out of Jan & Brian. They ran a very unconventional SV startup and got a lot of the details exactly and deliberately right. Not many stood a chance, as evidenced by their eventual £22bn exit.
[+] [-] gmuslera|1 year ago|reply
Even if it were an open source app with open governance, the shaping of culture happens at a different layer. And that shaping sometimes is guided and not in the best interest of the users.
[+] [-] unnamed76ri|1 year ago|reply
[deleted]
[+] [-] mvavassori|1 year ago|reply
[+] [-] IshKebab|1 year ago|reply
But WhatsApp is the dominant messaging platform in most of the world. E.g. in the UK it has basically 100% market share.
[+] [-] onetokeoverthe|1 year ago|reply
[deleted]