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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

#81

Post by wasmitnetzen »

dheera wrote: post #77
tuna74 wrote: post #72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"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)

Everyone who's a permanent resident in Sweden gets a personal identity number, it's not tied to your citizenship. That would be illegal anyway, at least for citizens of other EU countries.

There's a lower-level, different number, which is less powerful, but easier to get.

Re: How WhatsApp became an unstoppable global cultural force

#82

Post by spookie »

wenc wrote: post #70
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 t…

Apple devices cost more in Europe, a jump high enough that you might as well consider the competition. I'm taking VAT into account.

That and, well... Google has been more supportive of EU countries than Apple. Apple maps was useless in the EU for a long time. Plus horrendous support across the EU. If you are in a big city, yeah you will find an Apple Store, otherwise tough luck.

It has nothing to do with craftmanship.

Re: How WhatsApp became an unstoppable global cultural force

#83

Post by Zak »

lotsofpulp wrote: post #78
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.

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 smar…

I suppose none of the others, which could have leveraged their existing userbase chose to follow suit because the companies that owned them did not have a way to make money from them. WhatsApp didn't either, but startups weren't expected to.

Re: How WhatsApp became an unstoppable global cultural force

#84

Post by kazen44 »

Zak wrote: post #35
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…

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.

yes, roaming coasts where still a thing inside the EU, so messaging relatives or friends while on holiday sucked because of the enormous pricing for roaming. (even while using SMS!. I remember paying rougly 30 euros to send a couple of hundred text messages and have a couple of minutes ( like half an hour or something) while on holiday in france.

thankfully, roaming got abolished in the first half of the 2010's thank to an EU directive, but at that time whatsapp was already very large across the EU.

Re: How WhatsApp became an unstoppable global cultural force

#85

Post by notahacker »

comprev wrote: post #75
josu wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

It cost ~$1 (initially a one time fee, later joiners paid annually). Depending on your SMS plan, that might be paid for with the first 10 messages you sent. There was zero additional cost to use to send a lot of messages, including pictures and group messages. This was quite different to most mobile contracts at the time

Re: How WhatsApp became an unstoppable global cultural force

#86

Post by messe »

wasmitnetzen wrote: post #81
dheera wrote: post #77

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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)

Everyone who's a permanent resident in Sweden gets a personal identity number, it's not tied to your citizenship. That would be illegal anyway, at least for citizens of other EU countries. There's a lower-level, different number, which is less powerful, but easier to get.

> Everyone who's a permanent resident in Sweden gets a personal identity number, it's not tied to your citizenship

Same in Denmark too. You get a "CPR" number, and can login to most government services (as well as some commercial ones) with "MitID" (my ID). It's quite convenient. I can even use my MitID to buy alcohol without having to interact with another human being in Rema 1000 using their self-checkout app.

Ireland—where I moved from—has a similar "PPS" number that all residents can get, although the online aspect is not nearly as well integrated as it is here in Denmark; it's slowly improving.

Re: How WhatsApp became an unstoppable global cultural force

#87

Post by narrator »

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…

Being the rare American Android person, I use it, Signal and Telegram to communicate with Iphone people since IMessage SMS integration is badly crippled.

Re: How WhatsApp became an unstoppable global cultural force

#88

Post by viraptor »

notahacker wrote: post #85
comprev wrote: post #75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

WhatsApp was a paid product to start with.

It cost ~$1 (initially a one time fee, later joiners paid annually). Depending on your SMS plan, that might be paid for with the first 10 messages you sent. There was zero additional cost to use to send a lot of messages, including pictures and group messages. This was quite different to most mobile contracts at the time

It wasn't even enforced though. Charged only after a year, but you could reinstall and get another year free.

Re: How WhatsApp became an unstoppable global cultural force

#90

Post by hocuspocus »

Zak wrote: post #80
hocuspocus wrote: post #71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 reco…

I don't buy it. Google just followed iMessage, only two years later, I don't see why carriers would suddenly have an issue with that. Plus Hangouts has never been a mainstream mobile messaging app, and I was a big user at the time. I worked at Samsung then and I'd bet most Android users never launched Hangouts nor even noticed it was preinstalled.

Google killed the integration in 2017 when they started betting on RCS and Google Messages more seriously.

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