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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

#131

Post by ethbr1 »

hocuspocus wrote: post #90
Zak wrote: post #80

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

At the time, Google was in a much weaker position to push against carrier demands, because it didn't have as firm control over Android OEMs.

So it was trying to juggle carrier + OEMs + Android and keep everyone happy.

Anything that upset one party wasn't going to happen. Only in more recent, Samsung/Pixel-centric times has Google had iPhone-like negotiating weight (and will).

Re: How WhatsApp became an unstoppable global cultural force

#132

Post by lanstin »

beAbU wrote: post #108
ks2048 wrote: post #92

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 phone…

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…

The cultural aspect is that I can't really extend my refusal to use Meta technology to WhatsApp because so many family members and important family data are only available via WhatsApp.

Re: How WhatsApp became an unstoppable global cultural force

#134

Post by carlosroman101 »

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.

Not sure how true this is as I had unlimited SMS in the UK in 2000. I struggled to keep that plan as the original provider got bought by O2. Luckily when it happened lots of providers provided enough SMS that was basically "unlimited". The problem for me was the cost of accessing no wap web pages.

Re: How WhatsApp became an unstoppable global cultural force

#135

Post by Evidlo »

openrisk wrote: post #125

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.

No, it shouldn't be another walled garden. Go with an actual standardized protocol.

Re: How WhatsApp became an unstoppable global cultural force

#136

Post by jorvi »

loloquwowndueo wrote: post #16
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…

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…

> 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 still remember the "Ping!" app (not Blackberry Ping). Because early iOS was very lackluster with no notification support, every message was a pop-up. And "Ping!" itself had no message history. WhatsApp followed pretty closely after.

Even earlier, people used MSN via eBuddy. Not everyone had a smartphone yet, but at least the whole world was on MSN, so as long as the person without a smartphone was at a PC, you could converse. Someone had to text you "hey, get on eBuddy/MSN" though. Apps could either be foregrounded or dead in the background. There was no background processing aside from privileged apps like Mail or Music. And there was no notification service that could act like an IRC bouncer and wake up your backgrounded application. Medieval times.

Also, back then almost no one was using data, it was texting / calling that was still the major cash cow of providers, so you often got unlimited data for very cheap.

Funnily enough that "unlimited data for cheap" later led to a pretty big scuffle between providers and clever people who rolled over their contract indefinitely. Legally providers had to keep providing them with unlimited internet. The trick they did to push customers to renew their subscription was only providing them with 2G or 3G data (depending on their contract) and also limiting their speeds to the lowest tier. One provider even went as far as squeezing them on band access.

Re: How WhatsApp became an unstoppable global cultural force

#137

Post by oefrha »

crazygringo wrote: post #99
Zak wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

You are correct, this is exactly the reason. Other countries charged per SMS so everyone had good reason to use an app instead. The US didn't charge, so why would anyone download an app?

> The US didn't charge

More like charged so exorbitantly up front so there’s no reason to additionally charge per use. My AT&T phone bill in the early 2010s was ~$80 as a single line or ~$50 per line as part of a family, which was several times over what I paid elsewhere with per-minute/text pricing. I later switched to a cheap MVNO (PureTalk) which did charge per text.

Re: How WhatsApp became an unstoppable global cultural force

#138

Post by stackghost »

beAbU wrote: post #108
ks2048 wrote: post #92

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 phone…

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…

All the things you discuss are exactly why Whatsapp is such a great application.

Re: How WhatsApp became an unstoppable global cultural force

#139

Post by hocuspocus »

ethbr1 wrote: post #131
hocuspocus wrote: post #90

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

At the time, Google was in a much weaker position to push against carrier demands, because it didn't have as firm control over Android OEMs. So it was trying to juggle carrier + OEMs + Android and keep everyone happy. Anything that upset one party wasn't going to happen. Only in more recent, Samsung/Pixel-centric times has Google had iPhone-like negotiating weight (and will).

But realistically I don't know why any carrier would give a damn about this. In 2013, SMS was already irrelevant in most of the world. And in the US pretty much everyone had had unlimited texting for a while. Encouraging people towards OTT messaging was beneficial to carriers that were now ubiquitously making money on data packages, not texts/calls.

Re: How WhatsApp became an unstoppable global cultural force

#140

Post by hocuspocus »

ncruces wrote: post #97
Zak wrote: post #83

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

The initial WhatsApp plan was to charge between $1 and 2€, initially a one time fee paid after a few weeks, then a yearly subscription after one free year. I kinda wish that had paned out. It'd still be hundreds of millions of dollars in yearly revenue. Plus businesses.

The funny thing is that on Android, I never had to pay the fee as the free trial kept getting extended. Only my friends with iPhones paid for WhatsApp, IIRC on iOS it was upfront too!
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