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How WhatsApp became an unstoppable global cultural force

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Re: How WhatsApp became an unstoppable global cultural force

#21

Post by orf »

Veserv wrote: post #18
insane_dreamer wrote: post #8

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 w…

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 regulate…

Nope - nobody in Europe uses WhatsApp as a payments platform. Does it even have one?

It succeeded because it was around at the time where SMS messages where expensive, but smart phones where exploding in popularity.

Re: How WhatsApp became an unstoppable global cultural force

#23

Post by noprocrasted »

exabrial wrote: post #2

What worries me is FB is in charge. It’s allegedly secure, but closed source. What’s their profit model here anyway?

It collects people's contacts and social graphs, which are then used to influence ad targeting in Meta's other platforms.

That's why it insists so badly on having full access to your contacts.

Re: How WhatsApp became an unstoppable global cultural force

#24

Post by orf »

itikasp wrote: post #10
insane_dreamer wrote: post #8

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 w…

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 An…

It’s pretty simple: SMS functionality sucked and was super expensive.

Before WhatsApp there was blackberry messenger (BBM). When I was growing up kids were running around with blackberry phones, marketed at businessmen, purely for BBM. WhatsApp was just this, except on a platform that didn’t suck.

WhatsApp also predates iMessage and FaceTime.

Re: How WhatsApp became an unstoppable global cultural force

#25

Post by bonzini »

exabrial wrote: post #2

What worries me is FB is in charge. It’s allegedly secure, but closed source. What’s their profit model here anyway?

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.

A lot of this became public from FTC vs Meta: https://www.businessinsider.com/ftc-facebook-lawsuit-makes-z...

Re: How WhatsApp became an unstoppable global cultural force

#26

Post by MangoCoffee »

exabrial wrote: post #2

What worries me is FB is in charge. It’s allegedly secure, but closed source. What’s their profit model here anyway?

>What’s their profit model here anyway?

users data, perhaps? your data feed into FB's machine. I'm sure they will figured out how to make money.

Re: How WhatsApp became an unstoppable global cultural force

#27

Post by gfarah »

IshKebab wrote: post #20
kobalsky wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Whatsapp Business. $0.03-0.06 per conversation / authentication (multiple messages within 24hs) depending if it's transactional or marketing. SMS providers are unreliable and expensive, it's eating their business.

> SMS providers are unreliable and expensive, it's eating their business. Is it actually though? At least in the UK I still get every business message (delivery notifications, booking confirmations etc.) via SMS. I haven't received a single one via WhatsApp. And WhatsApp has 100% penetration here so that isn't a barrier.

I can speak for LATAM, here WhatsApp it's much more reliable and faster than SMS

Re: How WhatsApp became an unstoppable global cultural force

#28

Post by Veserv »

orf wrote: post #21
Veserv wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 regulate…

Nope - nobody in Europe uses WhatsApp as a payments platform. Does it even have one? It succeeded because it was around at the time where SMS messages where expensive, but smart phones where exploding in popularity.

WhatsApp is not a "everything" platform in most of Europe. Do you open WhatsApp to play music, games, order takeout, order online, pay for rent? It is just a very popular chat application in most of Europe in contrast to a "everything" app like WeChat where you do all of those things.

[1] https://www.whatsapp.com/payments/in

Re: How WhatsApp became an unstoppable global cultural force

#29

Post by crop_rotation »

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.

Re: How WhatsApp became an unstoppable global cultural force

#30

Post by Swizec »

orf wrote: post #21
Veserv wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 regulate…

Nope - nobody in Europe uses WhatsApp as a payments platform. Does it even have one? It succeeded because it was around at the time where SMS messages where expensive, but smart phones where exploding in popularity.

> It succeeded because it was around at the time where SMS messages where expensive, but smart phones where exploding in popularity.

Not sure that’s true everywhere. In Slovenia we had unlimited texting way before we had smartphones.

By around 2005 all carriers offered a “teenager” plan with unlimited texting and near zero phone minutes. Data was not yet a selling point.

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