4 ms·

it's neither the first nor the last chat app, i believe - so how would you say the world changed? (note that i don't use whatsapp and am not all that familiar

by abiox 9y ago

it's neither the first nor the last chat app, i believe - so how would you say the world changed? (note that i don't use whatsapp and am not all that familiar with it. mostly i'm aware of it due to an interest in erlang.)

freeone3000 9y ago
Previously there wasn't a WhatsApp app, and now there is! World changed. :)
NikolaeVarius 9y ago
Over 1 Billion users. According to wiki: According to the Financial Times, WhatsApp "has done to SMS on mobile phones what Skype did to international calling on landlines."[167] Seems pretty world changing in terms of providing a core communication service to 1/7 of the human population
RestlessMind 9y ago
Some ways in which WhatsApp changed the world, based on my first hand experience: - many of my family members, especially in developing world, bought a smartphone solely as a reason to be on WhatsApp. Nothing convinced them before to buy one. Once they had it, they discovered other awesome uses of a smartphone and are part of the "mobile revolution"(TM). That alone should qualify for "changing the world". - no one I know uses SMS anymore (again, developing countries). A great change given the price gouging before (and Americans probably won't understand that if you haven't seen it first hand). - Amount of "support" happening on WhatsApp in the broader economy - (eg. booking a taxi, ordering home delivery from corner grocery store etc - which needed a phone call before and was not as smooth as WhatsApp experience) - hyper-sharing of casual moments in life. I know, I know - there was facebook and picasa and whatnot before that and instagram/snap these days, but amount of photo sharing that happens on WhatsApp is 2 to 3 orders of magnitude higher than what came before or other channels (again, developing countries), simply because WhatsApp made it super simple to share compared to predecessors and is ubiquitous compared to other contemporaries. It should also be noted that WhatsApp needed two big giant shoulders to stand upon: - android and affordable phones (sorry, iPhone simply doesn't cut the deal for the masses) - 2G / 3G spectrum and data connectivity
liotier 9y ago
No VOIP system before Whatsapp reached the threshold of general usability for the unwashed masses (a complex matter conflating voice quality, software distribution, contact discovery, network effect, data usage, resilience, system load etc.). Facebook and Viber came close but failed. Before Whatsapp, my friends in various African countries and their correspondents spent sometimes hundreds of Euros a month in voice communications. After Whatsapp: zero. It happened overnight. Quite a few chat applications worked as well, but one cannot overstate how radically Whatsapp has changed international voice for users and telcos alike. That is not just success in entertainment but a significant social impact.
- Retric 9y ago
  Saving people money != changing the world. The telegraph changed the world, so did cellphones. Cheaper messaging or HDTV did not. The difference is really one of capability not minor quality improvements. Otherwise you get into things like calling every single new generation of graphics cards as revolutionary not evolutionary.
  - liotier 9y ago
    There is a demand elasticity threshold effect. When people traveled overseas, the consensus was that they were out of reach. Cheap Internet access broke that consensus for text & images. Whatsapp broke it for synchronous voice. People can now maintain close relationships internationally. It did not happen linearly with international voice prices decrease: it happened suddenly with the combination of the cost reaching zero with accepted usability.
    - Retric 9y ago
      Whatsapp started in 2009, you could do free voice chat internationally well before that. Arguably they 'won' because Skype was sold to Microsoft in 2009 creating a huge opening. But, it hardly changed the world even if it did save some people quite a bit of money. PS: I suspect people will have the same conversation in 10 years about a company created around 2014 when Whatsapp was sold.

by abiox 9y ago

freeone3000 9y ago

Previously there wasn't a WhatsApp app, and now there is! World changed. :)

NikolaeVarius 9y ago

Over 1 Billion users. According to wiki: According to the Financial Times, WhatsApp "has done to SMS on mobile phones what Skype did to international calling on landlines."[167] Seems pretty world changing in terms of providing a core communication service to 1/7 of the human population

RestlessMind 9y ago

Some ways in which WhatsApp changed the world, based on my first hand experience: - many of my family members, especially in developing world, bought a smartphone solely as a reason to be on WhatsApp. Nothing convinced them before to buy one. Once they had it, they discovered other awesome uses of a smartphone and are part of the "mobile revolution"(TM). That alone should qualify for "changing the world". - no one I know uses SMS anymore (again, developing countries). A great change given the price gouging before (and Americans probably won't understand that if you haven't seen it first hand). - Amount of "support" happening on WhatsApp in the broader economy - (eg. booking a taxi, ordering home delivery from corner grocery store etc - which needed a phone call before and was not as smooth as WhatsApp experience) - hyper-sharing of casual moments in life. I know, I know - there was facebook and picasa and whatnot before that and instagram/snap these days, but amount of photo sharing that happens on WhatsApp is 2 to 3 orders of magnitude higher than what came before or other channels (again, developing countries), simply because WhatsApp made it super simple to share compared to predecessors and is ubiquitous compared to other contemporaries. It should also be noted that WhatsApp needed two big giant shoulders to stand upon: - android and affordable phones (sorry, iPhone simply doesn't cut the deal for the masses) - 2G / 3G spectrum and data connectivity

liotier 9y ago

No VOIP system before Whatsapp reached the threshold of general usability for the unwashed masses (a complex matter conflating voice quality, software distribution, contact discovery, network effect, data usage, resilience, system load etc.). Facebook and Viber came close but failed. Before Whatsapp, my friends in various African countries and their correspondents spent sometimes hundreds of Euros a month in voice communications. After Whatsapp: zero. It happened overnight. Quite a few chat applications worked as well, but one cannot overstate how radically Whatsapp has changed international voice for users and telcos alike. That is not just success in entertainment but a significant social impact.

Retric 9y ago
Saving people money != changing the world. The telegraph changed the world, so did cellphones. Cheaper messaging or HDTV did not. The difference is really one of capability not minor quality improvements. Otherwise you get into things like calling every single new generation of graphics cards as revolutionary not evolutionary.
- liotier 9y ago
  There is a demand elasticity threshold effect. When people traveled overseas, the consensus was that they were out of reach. Cheap Internet access broke that consensus for text & images. Whatsapp broke it for synchronous voice. People can now maintain close relationships internationally. It did not happen linearly with international voice prices decrease: it happened suddenly with the combination of the cost reaching zero with accepted usability.
  - Retric 9y ago
    Whatsapp started in 2009, you could do free voice chat internationally well before that. Arguably they 'won' because Skype was sold to Microsoft in 2009 creating a huge opening. But, it hardly changed the world even if it did save some people quite a bit of money. PS: I suspect people will have the same conversation in 10 years about a company created around 2014 when Whatsapp was sold.