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This is so strange, no one in my social circle uses WhatsApp or has ever asked me to use it to talk to them. It’s all iMessage, Snapchat, and a growing group of
by zionic 5y ago
This is so strange, no one in my social circle uses WhatsApp or has ever asked me to use it to talk to them. It’s all iMessage, Snapchat, and a growing group of people on Signal.
- shadowfaxRodeo 5y agoUnderstandably, people who don’t use WhatsApp, don’t think it’s weird that other people don’t use WhatsApp. People who do have WhatsApp, probably have it, because most of the people they know have it.
- emerged 5y agoSame here, I’ve never even heard someone I know say the word “WhatsApp” in my life.
- lucasverra 5y agoUsa? Cause what parent described is common in EU + LATAM
- Flashtoo 5y agoI assume you're in the US. In most of Europe Whatsapp is the main communication platform. SMS is dead and Android is more popular than iOS, so no iMessage either.
- rtkwe 5y agoIt can depend a lot on where in the world you and your friend group are or are from. It's quite popular with the Indian H1B contractors in my office in the US for example but not too many of my US friends use it. Same story with my fiancé and her lab groups which have a lot of European grad students and post docs, it's quite common there too.
- emptyfile 5y agoI don't even know what iMessage is.
- Macha 5y agoSomething something american teenagers bubble colours?
- egypturnash 5y agoApple's SMS/IM client. Only available on Apple operating systems.
- hnlmorg 5y agoMessaging clients tend to be regional. WhatsApp is massive in Europe. From what I gather WeChat is dominant in mainland China but Hong Kong still used WhatsApp (though I think they might be coming round to Signal?) and the US, who have a higher ratio of Apple users vs the rest of the world, tend to use iMessage a lot more.
- unyttigfjelltol 5y agoInteroperability between these systems should be a public policy goal. I don't have to buy an AT&T phone anymore to call my friends; not sure why I have to buy iOS to chat with them.
- Vinnl 5y agoThen again, I've kinda given up on email privacy since at least half of my emails go to Google's servers anyway. I'm not sure if we can avoid Facebook having my IP address (or whatever future attack vectors are found after the protocol has been standardised) if I message WhatsApp users from my Signal account.
- hnlmorg 5y agoI agree with you but this is a problem that date backs to the 90s (anyone remember Bitlbee, Trillion, Pidgeon, etc?). Unfortunately incompatibility is seen by businesses a feature rather than a flaw -- despite the annoyances it causes for users.
- sbarre 5y agoAt one point the US Govt did mandate interoperability on AOL Messenger, once it became the dominant platform. So there is precedent for this, but we live in very different times now.
- scbrg 5y agoInteroperability is tricky when one set of apps has end to end encryption as a requirement, and the other set has absence of end to end encryption as a requirement.
- saberience 5y agoIn the UAE (Dubai, Abu Dhabi, etc), it's almost impossible to live without WhatsApp since almost every business does customer support using it. Want to get a delivery? You'll be told about it via WhatsApp. Want to order food online? WhatsApp. Want to pick up your laundry? WhatsApp. etc. It's everywhere here and totally dominant. Deciding not to use it would make your life significantly harder.
- tonylemesmer 5y agoI tried to precipiate a shift away from Whatsapp the last time they did a privacy grab a year or two ago. But so many people use it for group messaging. The gravity around Whatsapp is enough to prevent people swapping to Signal in my circles. Now I've got so many messaging apps. I just want one. Only one. (based in the UK)