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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

#61

Post by orf »

dheera wrote: post #60
orf wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Nope, but by that definition almost no countries have an “everything app”. There’s like, one example in a very unique market? It’s the “everything app” for messaging, friends and groups.

In China, WeChat supports messaging, payments, as well as: - Booking trains on the national railway - Booking flights - Booking hotels - Paying all your bills - Buying stuff - Ordering food - Renting a bike - Getting a rideshare - Seeing a doctor - Donating to charities - Investing - Reading e-books - Pretty much everything else A lot of it is done through their HTML5 "mini-app" ecosystem but it's all under one every…

Yes, but the question was “does this exist anywhere other than in China?”

China is a pretty specific and unique market. Perhaps the existence of such an “everything app” is related to that, explaining why it doesn’t exist elsewhere?

Re: How WhatsApp became an unstoppable global cultural force

#62

Post by Veserv »

Zak wrote: post #54
orf wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 appears to support payments in India, and nowhere else.

India and Brazil [1]. Only their two biggest markets [2].

[1] https://faq.whatsapp.com/1293279751500598

[2] https://worldpopulationreview.com/country-rankings/whatsapp-...

Re: How WhatsApp became an unstoppable global cultural force

#63

Post by Veserv »

orf wrote: post #42
Veserv wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

Nope, but by that definition almost no countries have an “everything app”. There’s like, one example in a very unique market? It’s the “everything app” for messaging, friends and groups.

Yes, very few countries have a app where you can do "everything" in it. "This clear definition is really hard to achieve, therefore it must mean something different" is not a counter-argument.

I observe that these applications which are everything apps almost always have integrated payments platforms. This is not always the case, but seems to be the stickiest part of the offering. My thesis is that a competitive application with a integrated payments platform will eventually outcompete the ones without. Payments are possible in China with WeChat which is dominant. Payments are possible in India and Brazil with WhatsApp which are their dominant markets.

Counter-examples would take the form of markets/countries where there are multiple-domain applications with payments platforms that rapidly lose or lost marketshare to multiple-domain applications without payments. Markets where no popular application has payments provide no information as to the relative value of a integrated payments platform.

Re: How WhatsApp became an unstoppable global cultural force

#66

Post by conradfr »

Swizec wrote: post #30
orf wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

SMS is one part of the story, group messaging is the other one.

Re: How WhatsApp became an unstoppable global cultural force

#67

Post by out_of_protocol »

orf wrote: post #61
dheera wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In China, WeChat supports messaging, payments, as well as: - Booking trains on the national railway - Booking flights - Booking hotels - Paying all your bills - Buying stuff - Ordering food - Renting a bike - Getting a rideshare - Seeing a doctor - Donating to charities - Investing - Reading e-books - Pretty much everything else A lot of it is done through their HTML5 "mini-app" ecosystem but it's all under one every…

Yes, but the question was “does this exist anywhere other than in China?” China is a pretty specific and unique market. Perhaps the existence of such an “everything app” is related to that, explaining why it doesn’t exist elsewhere?

Telegram moving in this direction very fast. At this moment, telegram is used as news, blogs, file transfer app, chat etc. Recently added miniapps with real payments integration, "stars" as internal currency

Re: How WhatsApp became an unstoppable global cultural force

#68

Post by meiraleal »

Veserv wrote: post #62
Zak wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

WhatsApp appears to support payments in India, and nowhere else.

India and Brazil [1]. Only their two biggest markets [2]. [1] https://faq.whatsapp.com/1293279751500598 [2] https://worldpopulationreview.com/country-rankings/whatsapp-...

The usage of the payment feature in Brazil is very, very low. I never heard about anyone using it. The Central Bank launched a national payment system (Pix) at the same time whatsapp wanted to launch their solution so they made Meta wait a few more months to get authorization. Now everybody uses Pix.

Re: How WhatsApp became an unstoppable global cultural force

#69

Post by wenc »

orf wrote: post #61
dheera wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In China, WeChat supports messaging, payments, as well as: - Booking trains on the national railway - Booking flights - Booking hotels - Paying all your bills - Buying stuff - Ordering food - Renting a bike - Getting a rideshare - Seeing a doctor - Donating to charities - Investing - Reading e-books - Pretty much everything else A lot of it is done through their HTML5 "mini-app" ecosystem but it's all under one every…

Yes, but the question was “does this exist anywhere other than in China?” China is a pretty specific and unique market. Perhaps the existence of such an “everything app” is related to that, explaining why it doesn’t exist elsewhere?

Yes, they exist elsewhere. Check out Grab (southeast Asia), Line (Japan, Taiwan), Kakao (Korea), Gojek (Indonesia), PayTm (India) or any number of everything-apps.

Re: How WhatsApp became an unstoppable global cultural force

#70

Post by wenc »

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…

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.

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.

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