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 smartph

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