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Most people in Latin America, and India have it. I also have plenty of African friends that use it. Not sure about Europe, China uses WeChat. The reason is tha
by cocoa19 9y ago
Most people in Latin America, and India have it. I also have plenty of African friends that use it. Not sure about Europe, China uses WeChat.
The reason is that cellphone carriers used to charge you by the message (I speak from experience in Mexico), this was expensive compared to the average wage. Cheaper to just connect to WiFi, and send as many messages as you want.
Also, WhatsApp was one of the first popular and reliable messaging systems for cellphones. If offline or with poor signal, your messages where enqueued, and sent when you had signal. Facebook nor Skype had this back a few years ago.
US is a rich country, SMS has been cheap since I've lived in the us (4 years). 3 hours of minimum wage, $30, for unlimited everything, data, SMS, calls. WhatsApp didn't really solve a problem.
- masklinn 9y agoIt's quite popular in Europe and extremely so in Israel (IIRC they have >85% penetration there) so it doesn't seem unreliable infrastructure or expensive SMS would be the main factors in every place. Though at least in my experience, in europe it seems mostly used for small-ish "trusted" group chats to shoot the shit or prepare/synchronise stuff.
- mercer 9y agoI think factors that play a role everywhere are features (attachments and the like), and quite possibly the way it's tied to your phone. And all of it being as reliable as sms means there are no real downsides.
- dagw 9y agoUS is a rich country, SMS has been cheap since I've lived in the us SMS is free in most/all of Europe as well, yet people use WhatsApp. So it's not just price.
- IceyEC 9y agoI don't have to worry about where the other person is; I can send WhatsApp messages to my family back in the US, or to friends here in the Netherlands, but it doesn't cost me anything. SMS to local numbers is free, but it's not free to send an SMS to the US
- teekert 9y agoIt's not free for me, granted you can get unlimited texting plans very cheap. But why bother for a service that won't even let you send a picture?