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WA is not particularly good, it's just that I don't know anyone who doesn't use it (in the Netherlands), even when you want to contact helpdesks it is sometimes
by teekert 6y ago
WA is not particularly good, it's just that I don't know anyone who doesn't use it (in the Netherlands), even when you want to contact helpdesks it is sometimes the preferred way. I mean, we have this in many streets: [0]
Without kids I could see myself getting away with not using WA, but with kids you are really setting yourself up for a very hard time (and prepare to be judged by other (annoyed) parents and your kid will feel the consequences at some point, the kids will miss out on critical and fun information).
WA has almost become what email used to be. Except that it's a controlled platform and we are locked into a single provider, a provider that once promised a focus on privacy and an app free of commercials, forever...
[0] https://duckduckgo.com/?q=whatsapp+buurtpreventie&t=ffsb&iax=images&ia=images&iai=http%3A%2F%2Fcdn.nieuws.nl%2Fmedia%2Fsites%2F305%2F2015%2F12%2F05153708%2Fattentie-whatsapp-buurtpreventie.jpg https://duckduckgo.com/?q=whatsapp+buurtpreventie&t=ffsb&iax...
- dtech 6y agoIt has completely replace texting in NL and some parts of Europe too, and I mean that literally.
- teekert 6y agoAt one point I had unlimited data (2011-ish?) for 5 eur/month and a text was 20 euro cents per 160 chars or so... So I guess providers wanted SMS to disappear here.
- beaconstudios 6y agoyep, here in the UK everyone I know uses whatsapp. Some people have telegram as well, but WA is the baseline. The only SMS texts I get are marketing and automatic notifications.
- studius 6y agoWhat does it do that's so great?
- chaosite 6y agoIt's "good enough", and it used to be free when texting wasn't. And it's better than SMS at Unicode.
- teekert 6y agoAnd at sending/receiving pictures... MMS was even more expensive here.
- beaconstudios 6y agoit just replaced texting back when phone contracts tried to charge lots of money for texts. The network effect does the rest.
- Agingcoder 6y agoIt's more reliable than sms - I used not to receive some of the texts people would send me, which caused all kinds of misunderstandings. I ended up doing experiments with friends sitting beside me just to prove my point. The same thing happened to family members. I'm not sure what the problem was, but WhatsApp solved it.
- thw0rted 6y agoI don't actually use SMS but I don't think that most people get read/receipt confirmation. The little check-mark system in WA is a big step forward compared to plain texting. Of course, similar features exist in other chat applications, but if the comparison is just between WA and SMS, that's a big difference.