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I fail to see how this will seriously damage them. They already own the two biggest alternatives to facebook - Instagram for pictures and WhatsApp for communica

by otalp 9y ago

I fail to see how this will seriously damage them. They already own the two biggest alternatives to facebook - Instagram for pictures and WhatsApp for communication. More people are using their services than ever before and more people are getting access to the internet in developing countries.

chrischen 9y ago
People in US don't really use Whatsapp. iOS users do use iMessage and Android use Hangouts.
- phinnaeus 9y ago
  Do android users actually uses Hangouts? I have a couple of friends on it but my understanding is that Android users (like myself) just stick with standard SMS/MMS in the US. Patiently waiting for Universal RCS to take off...
  - saym 9y ago
    I know this is just anecdotal, but my friends and I do heavily use Hangouts. It doesn't have enough functionality on its own, but I've augmented our experience with a chatbot powered by https://github.com/hangoutsbot/hangoutsbot https://github.com/hangoutsbot/hangoutsbot. Obviously I don't think that this experience is typical, not everyone is a programmer or has a server on which to run it.
  - becomingknown 9y ago
    Nope. Hangout is not at all a convenient app. Main Android apps after Whatsapp are Telegram, Kik, imo and WeChat.
  - int_19h 9y ago
    Hangouts also does SMS. And, on Nexus phones at least, it does it by default.
- antirez 9y ago
  We non-US people will never understand this, sorry. Instead of staying in a single cross-platform system US people prolonged for other ~5 years the use of SMS that was non existing here for a long time, also paying the highest costs in the world per SMS more or less (AFAIK you used to pay even for receiving), and now are picking OS-specific platforms.
  - nness 9y ago
    Also true for banking — The prominence of Apple and Android Pay is a direct response to the U.S. banking industries anti-competitive prices and poor adoption of global standards. Broadly speaking, Europe and SEA had contactless EMV chip payments well before the vendor-specific smartphone solutions.
- gordon_freeman 9y ago
  I don't see many people in the US carrying Android devices. Everyone I see seems to have iPhone. Android is more concentrated in Asian and South American countries IMO.
  - nness 9y ago
    iOS and Samsung’s U.S. market share is now tied [...] iOS is up 3.7 percentage points year-over-year, to achieve 35 percent market share, while Samsung only grew 0.8 points, reaching a 35.2 percent share [...] Android is still far ahead in the U.S., with a 63.2 percent share to iOS’s 35 percent. https://techcrunch.com/2017/10/13/ios-and-samsung-market-share-now-tied-in-the-u-s/ https://techcrunch.com/2017/10/13/ios-and-samsung-market-sha...
- mmcnl 9y ago
  The rest of the world does.
ngsayjoe 9y ago
Don't forget Telegram is gaining tractions lately. I just registered Telegram and hope Whatsapp die!
- cowpig 9y ago
  I think Telegram will have its own big scandal in the next few years
  - becomingknown 9y ago
    What makes you say so? I fell Whatsapp will hit a scandal first.
    - lambdadmitry 9y ago
      That's a non-sequitur.
- hungryfoolish 9y ago
  Good luck. Telegram is owned by Russians.
  - bmarquez 9y ago
    The founder (Durov) is a Russian in exile, fighting Putin's attempts to control the encryption keys. Secret chats are not affected, but cloud chats would be. Durov has stated he would rather see Telegram banned in Russia than give in, but the world will know in 2 weeks. https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2018-03-20/telegram-loses-bid-to-stop-russia-from-getting-encryption-keys https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2018-03-20/telegram-...
    - lambdadmitry 9y ago
      He's not "in exile", it was bluff/PR piece. He regularly visits St-Petersburg, and the main development office was also in St-Petersburg as of a year back right next door to the Vkontakte one. Durov is a very shady person, I wouldn't trust him with anything that you may want to keep private. Check out how a story by ex-employee of his [1], it gives a lot of backstage info. [1] https://medium.com/@anton.rozenberg/pavel-durov-sued-senior-tech-lead-for-1-7-b24961dec503 https://medium.com/@anton.rozenberg/pavel-durov-sued-senior-...

by otalp 9y ago

chrischen 9y ago

People in US don't really use Whatsapp. iOS users do use iMessage and Android use Hangouts.

phinnaeus 9y ago
Do android users actually uses Hangouts? I have a couple of friends on it but my understanding is that Android users (like myself) just stick with standard SMS/MMS in the US. Patiently waiting for Universal RCS to take off...
- saym 9y ago
  I know this is just anecdotal, but my friends and I do heavily use Hangouts. It doesn't have enough functionality on its own, but I've augmented our experience with a chatbot powered by https://github.com/hangoutsbot/hangoutsbot https://github.com/hangoutsbot/hangoutsbot. Obviously I don't think that this experience is typical, not everyone is a programmer or has a server on which to run it.
- becomingknown 9y ago
  Nope. Hangout is not at all a convenient app. Main Android apps after Whatsapp are Telegram, Kik, imo and WeChat.
- int_19h 9y ago
  Hangouts also does SMS. And, on Nexus phones at least, it does it by default.
antirez 9y ago
We non-US people will never understand this, sorry. Instead of staying in a single cross-platform system US people prolonged for other ~5 years the use of SMS that was non existing here for a long time, also paying the highest costs in the world per SMS more or less (AFAIK you used to pay even for receiving), and now are picking OS-specific platforms.
- nness 9y ago
  Also true for banking — The prominence of Apple and Android Pay is a direct response to the U.S. banking industries anti-competitive prices and poor adoption of global standards. Broadly speaking, Europe and SEA had contactless EMV chip payments well before the vendor-specific smartphone solutions.
gordon_freeman 9y ago
I don't see many people in the US carrying Android devices. Everyone I see seems to have iPhone. Android is more concentrated in Asian and South American countries IMO.
- nness 9y ago
  iOS and Samsung’s U.S. market share is now tied [...] iOS is up 3.7 percentage points year-over-year, to achieve 35 percent market share, while Samsung only grew 0.8 points, reaching a 35.2 percent share [...] Android is still far ahead in the U.S., with a 63.2 percent share to iOS’s 35 percent. https://techcrunch.com/2017/10/13/ios-and-samsung-market-share-now-tied-in-the-u-s/ https://techcrunch.com/2017/10/13/ios-and-samsung-market-sha...
mmcnl 9y ago
The rest of the world does.

ngsayjoe 9y ago

Don't forget Telegram is gaining tractions lately. I just registered Telegram and hope Whatsapp die!

cowpig 9y ago
I think Telegram will have its own big scandal in the next few years
- becomingknown 9y ago
  What makes you say so? I fell Whatsapp will hit a scandal first.
  - lambdadmitry 9y ago
    That's a non-sequitur.
hungryfoolish 9y ago
Good luck. Telegram is owned by Russians.
- bmarquez 9y ago
  The founder (Durov) is a Russian in exile, fighting Putin's attempts to control the encryption keys. Secret chats are not affected, but cloud chats would be. Durov has stated he would rather see Telegram banned in Russia than give in, but the world will know in 2 weeks. https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2018-03-20/telegram-loses-bid-to-stop-russia-from-getting-encryption-keys https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2018-03-20/telegram-...
  - lambdadmitry 9y ago
    He's not "in exile", it was bluff/PR piece. He regularly visits St-Petersburg, and the main development office was also in St-Petersburg as of a year back right next door to the Vkontakte one. Durov is a very shady person, I wouldn't trust him with anything that you may want to keep private. Check out how a story by ex-employee of his [1], it gives a lot of backstage info. [1] https://medium.com/@anton.rozenberg/pavel-durov-sued-senior-tech-lead-for-1-7-b24961dec503 https://medium.com/@anton.rozenberg/pavel-durov-sued-senior-...