4 ms·
As someone who's never used such a service, help me understand what's so critical about it. Can't people just send SMS? Aren't people on fb anyway, which can be
by slothtrop 6y ago
As someone who's never used such a service, help me understand what's so critical about it. Can't people just send SMS? Aren't people on fb anyway, which can be accessed with a container on Firefox?
EDIT: got some answers re SMS. Fine, though that doesn't explain why there is so much overlap/redundancy with social media applications. At a glance, it appears I could do the very same things (groups, multimedia) messaging people on facebook without having to install an app, and if people are on whatsapp they're almost 100% on facebook.
Apparently the "critical" nature of this is the facility of sending high rates of pictures and videos to others. I suspect mere FOMO owing to group-chat being localized there is enough to keep some people from cutting the cord, not the ability to communicate to multiple people in itself. People really are addicted to each other.
- r007c0n7r0l 6y agoWhatsApp allows Group Conversations and Sharing Media (Pictures, Videos, Files, Audio Files, GPS Location, Video Calls). SMS and MMS can not cope with that in large quantity like 100mbs of video files and hundred of pictures, because data is cheaper than MMS costs. This Privacy policy change whill allow Facebook, who bought WhatsApp, to extract all these data for their own purpose, before it was not the case.
- slothtrop 6y agoCan't all this be done on facebook?
- Phobophobia 6y agoYou used to be able to use WhatsApp and not have a Facebook account (for the obvious reasons).
- baq 6y agothat's the point - it isn't facebook, except it is.
- sbergot 6y agoPeople use whatsapp groups a lot. Also sharing images doesn't work well with SMS.
- romuloalves 6y agoUnfortunately, people in Brazil don't want to use SMS anymore. They replaced it by WhatsApp because well, they can show their happy life in Stories, see if someone is online, if they saw the message or are answering it... Really bad
- Phobophobia 6y agoCan't use SMS/MMS with people internationally who do not have an international mobile plan. If they also do not have a <insert other mutual account> then WhatsApp is the next option short of email.
- masalah 6y agoConcerning sms in many of the countries worldwide sms is not free/unlimited as the case in the us you only get a specific amount in your plan with extremely late/unreliable delivery so it's basically unusable for chat where I'm from and only works in the case of ads and credit card transaction notifications. whatsapp also had the advantage of being simple to use requiring only your phone number and it worked on pretty much any phone you had from symbian feature phones to the latest iphone helping it to gain widespread traction among people.
- el-salvador 6y agoSharing WhatsApp numbers is quick an can be done with everyone. It doesn't require your real name and doesn't share your list of friends by default. It means I can freely share my WhatsApp number with my bank, my boss, the delivery person, the plumber, the clerk from the nearby cafeteria, clients, the driver of the tow truck, or my teachers, anyone. But there is no way I'll share my Facebook or Intagram name/id with themn. That's more private and usually only done for friends or acquaintances.