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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

#191

Post by insane_dreamer »

madeofpalk wrote: post #107
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…

> The description of WhatsApp here is exactly what Elon wanted X to become I don't know what an "everything app" is, but that's not my experience with WhatsApp in Europe. It's just how you text or call everyone or businesses, but there's no payments or anything else going on beyond perhaps the occasional business chatbot. But even then, most 'businesses' I interact with over WhatsApp is just some person with a phone.

I think Elon's target was WeChat, and the article implied that WhatsApp had essentially the same functionality as WeChat, but that may not actually be the case, or maybe only in some countries like Brazil.

Re: How WhatsApp became an unstoppable global cultural force

#192

Post by elAhmo »

danpalmer wrote: post #117
elAhmo wrote: post #76

I feel like I am missing something. It is a chat app, one of many, with some features like communities (which feel like extremely large groups) and status updates (which almost every other app does).

The thing you’re missing is network effects. I use WhatsApp because all my family and friends are on it. We’re all on it because it’s the dominant chat network in the UK. It might seem like SMS must be an option because everyone has it, because if you have WA then you’ve got a number and can receive SMS, but that’s not how people view it. SMS is an app like every other (to most people), but it’s an app that doesn’t h…

Maybe I wasn't clear. I do use WhatsApp for friends, family, coworkers and even some business chats. That was my point, it is not a everything app, it is just a chat app.

Re: How WhatsApp became an unstoppable global cultural force

#193

Post by hocuspocus »

Zak wrote: post #185
hocuspocus wrote: post #162

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

Here's a related story from the period about why Microsoft didn't try something similar with Skype: https://www.pcworld.com/article/447285/why-skype-still-cant-... I can't help but think carriers were the reason Samsung didn't make Hangouts the default SMS client, which contributed to Hangouts not gaining momentum fast enough, which led to Google acquiring Jibe and launching other chat products.

In retrospect this seems like a silly concern given the Windows Phone market share and how obvious the solution was:

> and once shared-data plans reach critical mass, Verizon and other companies will have an active incentive to encourage the use of messaging services like Skype. More Web-sent data requires a beefier data allotment, after all.

Wasn't that already the case?! I didn't really follow plans available in the US around 2012-2013, but in East Asia and Europe, making subscribers pay more for bigger and faster data packages on LTE is exactly what every carrier was doing.

Regarding Samsung phones, of course Samsung had a good relationship with carriers and would typically be more willing to bend to their will, for instance by delaying and doing staged rollouts of firmware upgrades. However this isn't the main reason here. Samsung was absolutely dominating the Android market, being pretty much the only player making comfortable profit margins on the hardware. On the other hand, Samsung's leadership understood that there was nothing easier than moving from an Android phone to another, and that eventually a big part of the cake would be eaten by Chinese OEMs. Samsung worked hard on building its own brand of phones with One UI and its predecessors. The leadership absolutely hated the fact Google forced so many apps being preinstalled on certified Android phones. Hence people complaining about the number of duplicate apps seen as bloatware, sometimes rightfully so.

I don't think Samsung was afraid carriers would take offense at something as ubiquitous as OTT messaging. Case in point, I had coworkers working on ChatON, our own version of iMessage/FaceTime. This was a flop obviously, which is a bit sad since I believe Samsung had a real chance to acquire KakaoTalk around that time.

Re: How WhatsApp became an unstoppable global cultural force

#194

Post by Gigachad »

beAbU wrote: post #169
Gigachad wrote: post #145

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

That's pretty much how Telegram works. Technically you can search public groups but the search function doesn't really work so you can't find anything without a link.

Re: How WhatsApp became an unstoppable global cultural force

#195

Post by danpalmer »

elAhmo wrote: post #192
danpalmer wrote: post #117

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The thing you’re missing is network effects. I use WhatsApp because all my family and friends are on it. We’re all on it because it’s the dominant chat network in the UK. It might seem like SMS must be an option because everyone has it, because if you have WA then you’ve got a number and can receive SMS, but that’s not how people view it. SMS is an app like every other (to most people), but it’s an app that doesn’t h…

Maybe I wasn't clear. I do use WhatsApp for friends, family, coworkers and even some business chats. That was my point, it is not a everything app, it is just a chat app.

Ah apologies, yeah I think there were multiple definitions of that floating around. Some people here are clearly using it to mean "everything" chat, i.e. having no other networks of any significance (which I think WhatsApp is in many places). Others are suggesting it's got aspects of an everything app, with businesses doing support over it, etc, but that's perhaps a naive interpretation of what a WeChat-style everything app is, which in my opinion is the true definition of an everything app, and certainly something that WhatsApp is not.

Re: How WhatsApp became an unstoppable global cultural force

#196

Post by Leherenn »

humptybumpty wrote: post #173

I’ve used Whatsapp since 2012. Driving force with 20-30 somethings in early Whatsapp days in Europe was simply the first viable group messaging and sharing photos. And the simplicity of onboarding! It immediately checked all your contacts to see who uses whatsapp. All other apps used usernames and invites. This worked immediately. It worked on both phones, so everyone could join the group. Free SMS was ok, but operat…

Free international messages/calls as well. That's how most of my friends and I started using it: studying abroad is pretty common in Europe with Erasmus, or even simply vacationing.

Before that, we were using Skype, but I remember WhatsApp being so much more convenient/better, especially on mobile.

If it would have been very costly to send an SMS/call a different US state, I bet WhatsApp would have taken in the US.

Re: How WhatsApp became an unstoppable global cultural force

#197

Post by Zak »

hocuspocus wrote: post #193
Zak wrote: post #185

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Here's a related story from the period about why Microsoft didn't try something similar with Skype: https://www.pcworld.com/article/447285/why-skype-still-cant-... I can't help but think carriers were the reason Samsung didn't make Hangouts the default SMS client, which contributed to Hangouts not gaining momentum fast enough, which led to Google acquiring Jibe and launching other chat products.

In retrospect this seems like a silly concern given the Windows Phone market share and how obvious the solution was: > and once shared-data plans reach critical mass, Verizon and other companies will have an active incentive to encourage the use of messaging services like Skype. More Web-sent data requires a beefier data allotment, after all. Wasn't that already the case?! I didn't really follow plans available in th…

The impression I have from period reporting is that American carriers still saw voice and SMS as core businesses and viewed anything that directly tried to transition users away from that as a threat. Including a messaging app on a phone wasn't dangerous if both parties had to have it, but a seamless upgrade from SMS as the default would lead to nobody using SMS.

iMessage was exactly that sort of threat, and articles from the time mention carriers disliking it. Not selling iPhones would have hurt a carrier more than it would have hurt Apple, so their negotiating position was weak.

Google didn't have as tight control over Android as it does now, so carriers could pressure OEMs to not include Hangouts, or at least not make it the default SMS client.

Re: How WhatsApp became an unstoppable global cultural force

#198

Post by erikpukinskis »

jejfjfjfjsj wrote: post #184
erikpukinskis wrote: post #118

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I live in California. For me, group chats are predominantly iMessage. FaceTime for video chat. I only know a handful of people with Android phones and they just suffer with poor quality media. I suspect it’s both regionally and class dependent however.

What do you mean by poor quality media? WhatsApp and similar offer exactly the same kind of media transfers that iMessage offers.

I mean SMS media.

Re: How WhatsApp became an unstoppable global cultural force

#199

Post by jejfjfjfjsj »

erikpukinskis wrote: post #198
jejfjfjfjsj wrote: post #184

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What do you mean by poor quality media? WhatsApp and similar offer exactly the same kind of media transfers that iMessage offers.

I mean SMS media.

That’s exactly why everyone uses third-party messaging instead of SMS/MMS: iMessage, WhatsApp, Telegram etc.

I suspect the prevalence of iMessage and its weird mix with SMS/MMS results in people not realizing that it is a third-party service.

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