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No VOIP system before Whatsapp reached the threshold of general usability for the unwashed masses (a complex matter conflating voice quality, software distribut

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.

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.