621–630 of 776 posts
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WhatsApp is European much more than it is American. Most Americans are just using SMS like cave people.
How much of that due to sms historically being free in the US but cost per-message elsewhere?
It’s also why, briefly, (2008-2010 ish I believe) blackberry phones were the ones kids wanted because they could use blackberry messaging for free without using up their sms credits.
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discord servers
"servers" I don't think anybody actually cares, but I resent discord for this terminology.
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First thought: I had assumed ICQ was long dead. It seemed impossible anything from that era could still be running. IRC is of course, through the grace of an ecosystem, but it is a tiny fraction of what it was. Second thought: how do people randomly connect to talk now? Comments sections mostly? I have long ago stopped seeking new connections of any variety.
This new (and to be euthanised) ICQ isn't the one with the numeric username. Out of curiosity I did (re-)register a few years ago, IIRC it used the user's phone number as the username.
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WhatsApp is European much more than it is American. Most Americans are just using SMS like cave people.
The comment you replied to is more accurate, as WhatsApp is huge in multiple continents not just in Europe (just not as big in North America as you both point out). For example it's big in South America (and I think Central America too?)
Earlier quoted context omitted.
The comment you replied to is more accurate, as WhatsApp is huge in multiple continents not just in Europe (just not as big in North America as you both point out). For example it's big in South America (and I think Central America too?)
I thought in India too, used for payments or something? I remember it's used widely in many places
My older brother had a 5 digit number, and I remember knowing mine by heart at some point.
I also remember very early putting together like a mental map where different regions were on instant messaging. It became more clear as MSN Messenger was being rolled out that eastern europe stayed on ICQ and AOL while US and western Europe were being migrated over to MSN faster.
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I started writing an essay about this topic. I am one of those nostalgics by the old internet. I thought it was the aesthetic (geocities, etc), but after giving it a lot of thought, that wasn't. It was that your life (all of us) was "offline by default". We lived offline and then we connect to the internet for a few minutes, hours, whatever. But you lived your life offline. We attended concerts, took photos, recorded…
The Internet being an opt-in thing that you'd consciously connect to at a set our of the day, not something that would reach out to you and notify you about all kinds of things at random times, was definitely a different feeling. Back then, it felt like a parallel world; now it's more like an overlay on this one.
What is your experience of your phone and why are you so passive about it? You're getting unwanted notifications but, then, what, don't uninstall the app? Don't mute the app? Don't click "sign out"?
I will forever treasure my ICQ memories. The sounds it made. The moving image when it was connecting. Listening in Winamp to one of only a few dozen possible songs that I had carefully downloaded. Being able to randomly connect to people you would filter. Yes, I want to talk to someone more or less my age but in Iceland. Or any other country. But most of all, the feeling of being connected. As a teenager in the autis…