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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

#71

Post by hocuspocus »

Zak wrote: post #40
loloquwowndueo wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

An interesting tidbit is that WhatsApp actually predates FaceTime and iMessage, and thus it was one of the earliest iPhone apps that allowed sending text messages over data as opposed to SMS. Interoperability with Android was a plus. I was tremendously pissed off when I moved from a BlackBerry (with blackberry messenger and “free over data” messaging) to an iPhone in 2008 and had to go back to paying per sms sent. Th…

I found it surprising at the time that instant messaging apps that originated on PCs (ICQ, AIM, Skype, etc...) did not get widely adopted for this role despite most of the well-known ones releasing iOS and Android versions at the time.

ICQ and AIM were pretty much dead already.

Microsoft really missed an opportunity, I remember using a third party app for Messenger and the mobile experience wasn't great. Skype was too focused on voice and video calls, not seen as an instant messaging app, even though it could very well have been.

The biggest fumble really comes from Google though. I was using Google Talk as my main messaging app on PC, and Android had pretty much everything ready before iOS, including video chat over 3G.

However Google went through a pointless revamp with Hangouts and never managed a convincing SMS integration.

Re: How WhatsApp became an unstoppable global cultural force

#72

Post by tuna74 »

dheera wrote: post #46
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…

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…

"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."

That is because you don't have any good online ID authenticator. Something like BankId in Sweden is so incredibly practical in a lot of ways.

Re: How WhatsApp became an unstoppable global cultural force

#73

Post by rrr_oh_man »

wenc wrote: post #69
orf wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Kaspi in Kazakhstan

Re: How WhatsApp became an unstoppable global cultural force

#74

Post by orf »

Veserv wrote: post #63
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.

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 appl…

> I observe that these applications which are everything apps almost always have integrated payments platforms

But this is essentially a sample size of 1?

There’s definitely an advantage to having integrated payments if you want to do “everything” (most of which requires or is related to payment of some kind).

But IMO you’re missing the forest for the trees: adding a payment button to an app is essentially integrated from the PoV of the user - you can do it with Apple Pay or google wallet seamlessly. So why isn’t this good enough?

That lacks payments between friends, so that’s the most important factor? But then in most first-world countries you’re now competing against banks (old and new), who solve this really well, and a myriad of country-specific shit. That’s why they don’t exist.

So really, it’s not just “payments” - it’s becoming the common digital medium of exchange, and that can only happen now for very large, single currency markets that are starting to transition from an unbanked cash based society to a banked one.

You can’t just shove payments onto WhatsApp and expect people to use it to pay their utility bills in a market that has established and seamless ways to do this already. Why would companies make changes to support this?

Re: How WhatsApp became an unstoppable global cultural force

#75

Post by comprev »

josu wrote: post #50
itikasp wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

The US was one of the few countries in the world where there were unlimited SMS plans. So by the time Whatsapp came around instant free messaging was already ubiquitous. This wasn't the case for most other regions, where Whatsapp actually brought free unlimited mobile messaging.

WhatsApp was a paid product to start with.

Re: How WhatsApp became an unstoppable global cultural force

#77

Post by dheera »

tuna74 wrote: post #72
dheera wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

"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." That is b…

bankid.com: "To get a BankID, you must have a Swedish personal identity number"

What do non-citizens use in Sweden to get around?

The "everything apps" of places that have them aren't usually restricted to only citizens (though some admittedly have shitty UIs for non-citizens)

Re: How WhatsApp became an unstoppable global cultural force

#78

Post by lotsofpulp »

Zak wrote: post #40
loloquwowndueo wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

An interesting tidbit is that WhatsApp actually predates FaceTime and iMessage, and thus it was one of the earliest iPhone apps that allowed sending text messages over data as opposed to SMS. Interoperability with Android was a plus. I was tremendously pissed off when I moved from a BlackBerry (with blackberry messenger and “free over data” messaging) to an iPhone in 2008 and had to go back to paying per sms sent. Th…

I found it surprising at the time that instant messaging apps that originated on PCs (ICQ, AIM, Skype, etc...) did not get widely adopted for this role despite most of the well-known ones releasing iOS and Android versions at the time.

Because WhatsApp was the first with password less-login using SMS login.

It was dead simple to use. You had a phone, installed Whatsapp, it sent you a verification text that it automatically read and verified to ensure you owned that phone number, and that was your “account”.

No user names to remember, no passwords, a completely computer illiterate person could use it, especially if their first device ever was a smartphone.

And it worked amazingly well. And there was no spam. I specifically remember sharing contacts being a pain in the ass until WhatsApp came along.

Re: How WhatsApp became an unstoppable global cultural force

#79

Post by spookie »

Mond_ wrote: post #36
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 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.…

Yeah I fear this is the case really. At most, WhatsApp is a way to communicate with businesses while keeping a separation of concerns for those running them.

It is simply better than SMS and is dead simple. You can have a business app that makes this be a separate thing from your personal life while using the same phone.

I have seen it used as a way to contact restaurants or local stores, order stuff, but that was the extent of it. Just communication, nothing else.

For me, at least, it has only been the messaging app I'm willing to use to be in touch with non-techie friends.

Re: How WhatsApp became an unstoppable global cultural force

#80

Post by Zak »

hocuspocus wrote: post #71
Zak wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I found it surprising at the time that instant messaging apps that originated on PCs (ICQ, AIM, Skype, etc...) did not get widely adopted for this role despite most of the well-known ones releasing iOS and Android versions at the time.

ICQ and AIM were pretty much dead already. Microsoft really missed an opportunity, I remember using a third party app for Messenger and the mobile experience wasn't great. Skype was too focused on voice and video calls, not seen as an instant messaging app, even though it could very well have been. The biggest fumble really comes from Google though. I was using Google Talk as my main messaging app on PC, and Android…

Hangouts was the default SMS client in Android for a while, and it worked well enough as an SMS client that I never heard anybody complain about it. Much like iMessage, it could upgrade to internet-based messaging if both people in a conversation used it.

Where Google went wrong was bowing to pressure from carriers to stop doing that. Carriers had been much more powerful in the past, and I think Google failed to recognize just how fast their influence was waning.

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