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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

#161

Post by jorvi »

Zak wrote: post #149
hocuspocus wrote: post #139

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

End users are not the only customers for SMS. A large number of automated notifications, confirmations, and 2FA codes are sent that way, and carriers get paid for it.

> End users are not the only customers for SMS. A large number of automated notifications, confirmations, and 2FA codes are sent that way, and carriers get paid for it.

Not just paid, they gouge their enterprise customers for it. Signal did a cost breakdown[0] and of their $13.7 million infra costs, a whopping $6 million is "registration fees".

[0]https://signal.org/blog/signal-is-expensive/

Re: How WhatsApp became an unstoppable global cultural force

#162

Post by hocuspocus »

Zak wrote: post #158
hocuspocus wrote: post #156

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And how is this relevant to Hangouts acting as the default SMS client for a minority of subscribers?

If it was nearly every Android device, it wouldn't have been a minority in the mid 2010s. I don't have an authoritative citation, but complaints from carriers is often reported as the reason Google backed away from the default SMS client decision. Here's one example, but I've seen it from other publications: https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2022/11/rip-google-hangouts-...

It really was a tiny minority, almost nobody bought Google phones at the time. The vast majority of Android users never even knew of the Hangouts SMS integration.

I had a Nexus 4 and then 5 in 2013 and even though I was a big Hangouts user, I quickly disabled the SMS integration as it served no purpose in my case.

It would be extremely weird for carriers to pressure Google on such a niche feature among Android users when Apple actually pulled it off successfully for the other half of their subscribers.

> Google caved and introduced the standalone Google Messages in the next Android release.

This was more likely motivated by Jibe's acquisition and Google pushing a big revamp of RCS (Universal Profile) at the GSMA.

Ars also forgets to mention Allo. Google's strategy was a complete mess on its own, no need to blame carriers.

Re: How WhatsApp became an unstoppable global cultural force

#163

Post by hocuspocus »

Zak wrote: post #157
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…

Did Samsung use a different SMS client by default? I had Nexus and Xperia devices at the time, and they defaulted to Hangouts. If Samsung didn't use it, that approach might not have had much chance of reaching critical mass.

Right, Samsung had its own SMS client.

But even on (near) stock Android, you could easily install the AOSP client, or some third party (Textra was popular somehow).

I'm surprised Sony wouldn't bundle a proper SMS client by default. I thought only Nexus phones and Motorolas would default to Hangouts for a relatively short period, until Google started pushing Messages instead.

Re: How WhatsApp became an unstoppable global cultural force

#164

Post by steve1977 »

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…

> Japan does have a very high iOS market share however because they appreciate craftsmanship

Yeah that's probably not the case.

Sent from my Sony Xperia 1 VI

Re: How WhatsApp became an unstoppable global cultural force

#165

Post by steve1977 »

emchammer wrote: post #104
lostlogin wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> WhatsApp also predates iMessage and FaceTime. I was surprised to find this accurate. Though the lineage for a Mac user would likely include Messages and iChat, which go back further. iChat: 2002 https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/IChat Messages: 2007 https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Messages_(Apple) iMessage: 2011 https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/IMessage WhatsApp: 2009 https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/WhatsApp

Tidbit: The original iChat had an IPv6 link-local messaging function which worked entirely without Internet access or servers.

There also was an iChat server for Mac OS X Server IIRC.

Re: How WhatsApp became an unstoppable global cultural force

#166

Post by steve1977 »

lostlogin wrote: post #56
orf wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

> WhatsApp also predates iMessage and FaceTime. I was surprised to find this accurate. Though the lineage for a Mac user would likely include Messages and iChat, which go back further. iChat: 2002 https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/IChat Messages: 2007 https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Messages_(Apple) iMessage: 2011 https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/IMessage WhatsApp: 2009 https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/WhatsApp

But those were not mobile services, more like Apple's implementation of ICQ or MSN Messenger.

Re: How WhatsApp became an unstoppable global cultural force

#167

Post by wenc »

steve1977 wrote: post #164
wenc wrote: post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

> Japan does have a very high iOS market share however because they appreciate craftsmanship Yeah that's probably not the case. Sent from my Sony Xperia 1 VI

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Mh595PzMDPM

Re: How WhatsApp became an unstoppable global cultural force

#168

Post by Fire-Dragon-DoL »

This is the problem I keep mentioning with the very poor definition of "social media".

You wouldn't have said old flip phone was a social media, even if effectively whatsapp does the same stuff.

There is a big difference between an app pushing you toward "brand yourself" and with algorithm-controlled content and a contacting-app with none of the previous stuff. Yes, they are both "social" in the sense that they allow us to reach other humans, but that's where it ends.

I'm sure there are features I don't know about whatsapp though.

Re: How WhatsApp became an unstoppable global cultural force

#169

Post by beAbU »

Gigachad wrote: post #145
beAbU wrote: post #108

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

How is it different to Telegram? Telegram has some discovery features but they are extremely poor, to the point I still only find out about groups when people send me a link.

Whatsapp has zero mechanisms to find groups. Someone needs to invite you, or you need to have link that was given to you by someone.

Re: How WhatsApp became an unstoppable global cultural force

#170

Post by happymellon »

shafyy wrote: post #130
wenc wrote: post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

> Japan does have a very high iOS market share however because they appreciate craftsmanship Citation needed

Which part of that claim; that Japanese appreciate craftsmanship, or that iOS is crafted?
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