Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

WhatsApp and the Domestication of Users

seirdy.one

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

101–110 of 112 posts

Re: WhatsApp and the Domestication of Users

#101

Post by sn_master »

Swizec wrote: post #33
vinay427 wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think it was also a timing issue. Paying per SMS was a thing in the US when texting was novel ($0.10/SMS or so, IIRC?) but the US seemed to move to unlimited texting sooner than most places. However, today in the European country I live in it's almost impossible to find plans that don't include unlimited SMS, but it perhaps happened "too late" to take over messaging now that online platforms offer effectively free…

As a European teenager I always laughed at America for having to pay for SMS receipt. Ours were free and sending was free up to some ridiculously huge amount. Then I started dating a girl from another town and got a $500 sms bill. Oops This was before data, WAP was barely a thing. Circa 2004. We texted our days away at school. Got very good at touch typing under the desk.

Are you in Russia? I don't know many countries where the rate varies within the same country.

Re: WhatsApp and the Domestication of Users

#102

Post by kwanbix »

signal11 wrote: post #94
ksec wrote: post #47

I am not sure where to begin. WhatsApp didn't create any of these. Before that it was MSN, and before MSN it was ICQ / AIM. Instant messenger has been around for a very long time. Every Single criticism of WhatsApp could be said to any of the above. I felt the author made it as WhatsApp was specifically designed from Facebook for target advertising. For a long time, even after Facebook acquisition WhatsApp has little…

> Microsoft refuse to accept Smartphone is the future of computing hence there never was MSN on Smartphone. This. When WhatsApp came around, it wasn't free, but it was the a lightweight cross-platform mobile chat that worked . The only other smartphone-friendly chat app was Blackberry Messenger (BBM) -- and only on Blackberry. iMessage didn't exist. Google Chat was light and unobtrusive on the desktop, and there were…

WhatsApp was free. At least for the 1st year it was, and then you were supposed to pay 1 USD per year. 0.084 cents per month, which was also basically free. I paid till FB made it totally free, but I know a lot of friends that did not pay and they had their "free-year" extended. At least in Android.

Re: WhatsApp and the Domestication of Users

#103

Post by prionassembly »

hnick wrote: post #39
cameldrv wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Except in group chats. The switching costs are higher for those.

And chat history, if it's relevant. I think it is possible to export and browse chat history 'offline' but it's not trivial. Simply transferring my history from Android to IOS was a pain and I gave up, but I still have the backup somewhere just in case.

I think Telegram is trying to get people to migrate their chat histories now.

Re: WhatsApp and the Domestication of Users

#104

Post by [deleted] »

darcys22 wrote: post #91
tempestn wrote: post #90

Earlier quoted context omitted.

BBM has one great feature that I haven't seen replicated by any other platform - and it's so obvious, I assume RIM must have patented it: Sending a contact your real-time location for a set period of time. It was very convenient to be able to send someone you're supposed to meet an automatically updating location status.

Telegram does this

[deleted]

Re: WhatsApp and the Domestication of Users

#105

Post by twic »

tempestn wrote: post #90
Closi wrote: post #79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Absolutely! Also prior to WhatsApp messaging was even more of a walled garden. The ‘best’ was BBM - I lived in Canada for a year and you pretty much needed a blackberry to message friends because that’s what everyone had. I had moved back to the U.K. when the iPhone came out, and I originally didn’t want it because a lack of BBM meant it would be more difficult to keep in touch with my Canadian friends. When WhatsApp…

BBM has one great feature that I haven't seen replicated by any other platform - and it's so obvious, I assume RIM must have patented it: Sending a contact your real-time location for a set period of time. It was very convenient to be able to send someone you're supposed to meet an automatically updating location status.

WhatsApp has this.

Google Location Sharing does this, and i can access it from inside the SMS app:

https://support.google.com/maps/answer/7326816?co=GENIE.Plat...

Re: WhatsApp and the Domestication of Users

#106

Post by tullianus »

tempestn wrote: post #90
Closi wrote: post #79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Absolutely! Also prior to WhatsApp messaging was even more of a walled garden. The ‘best’ was BBM - I lived in Canada for a year and you pretty much needed a blackberry to message friends because that’s what everyone had. I had moved back to the U.K. when the iPhone came out, and I originally didn’t want it because a lack of BBM meant it would be more difficult to keep in touch with my Canadian friends. When WhatsApp…

BBM has one great feature that I haven't seen replicated by any other platform - and it's so obvious, I assume RIM must have patented it: Sending a contact your real-time location for a set period of time. It was very convenient to be able to send someone you're supposed to meet an automatically updating location status.

Even FB Messenger has this!

Re: WhatsApp and the Domestication of Users

#107

Post by alexpc201 »

YarickR2 wrote: post #49
alexpc201 wrote: post #3

We should decide which information about us we give, and which we don’t. No matter the app we use, noone should collect information about the app usage without user permission. This should be a law right now, but the cookies were more relevant, I pressume.

app usage data is collected all the time, in form of server logs, and you shouldn't expect this to change. We should be able to opt into using our data for marketing purposes, getting various benefits in return, but that should be opt in , not opt out. Still , this begs a question, what could be attributed as marketing purpose

They don’t even need server logs. You could opt being logged for support matters if you have problems. To log every user is not needed. It should be illegal. If you need to log usage to improve or debug the app you could opt in users like beta testers. Final users shouldn’t be logged at all. Also you could make no-logging a paid feature

Re: WhatsApp and the Domestication of Users

#108

Post by worker767424 »

jkaplowitz wrote: post #67
toast0 wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Line shared DSL had a lot of problems in the US, but it worked well overseas. For one, AT&T got most of the orders because their retail prices were often lower (sometimes quite a bit lower) than the wholesale prices they charged to smaller ISPs. It's really hard to compete like that. Add in fun things like initially line shared services were often over dry pair (no dial tone) and telephone company lineman often used…

They never should have let the same company own the wire and provide retail service. The retail part of AT&T should have had to pay the same rates to the wire owner as everyone else. And penalties should have been applied to the lineman's employer if they caused a loss of service without properly checking the database of the wire owner company. Alas, as you say, that's not how it happened.

As much as people like to talk up the AT&T breakup, it wasn't all that effective because it just created regional monopolies with the silly local/long distance split.

Splitting up network companies and retailers might have been more interesting, but there's still the issue of having a monopoly on the last mile of copper.

Re: WhatsApp and the Domestication of Users

#109

Post by tempestn »

twic wrote: post #105
tempestn wrote: post #90

Earlier quoted context omitted.

BBM has one great feature that I haven't seen replicated by any other platform - and it's so obvious, I assume RIM must have patented it: Sending a contact your real-time location for a set period of time. It was very convenient to be able to send someone you're supposed to meet an automatically updating location status.

WhatsApp has this. Google Location Sharing does this, and i can access it from inside the SMS app: https://support.google.com/maps/answer/7326816?co=GENIE.Plat...

WhatsApp: so it does! Looks like this was just added a couple months back?

Re: WhatsApp and the Domestication of Users

#110

Post by tempestn »

tullianus wrote: post #106
tempestn wrote: post #90

Earlier quoted context omitted.

BBM has one great feature that I haven't seen replicated by any other platform - and it's so obvious, I assume RIM must have patented it: Sending a contact your real-time location for a set period of time. It was very convenient to be able to send someone you're supposed to meet an automatically updating location status.

Even FB Messenger has this!

Indeed. I guess I gave up on any other messenger supporting this years ago. Looks like it was added to FBM in 2017.
Post reply on HN