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US here. On the old end of "millennial", if that matters. More than 95% of my personal communication with other humans I know (remote communication, that is, n

US here. On the old end of "millennial", if that matters. More than 95% of my personal communication with other humans I know (remote communication, that is, not in-person, obviously) is in WhatsApp. The rest is phone and SMS and that's all older family. SMS, like email, is mainly for machines to talk to me.

caseyohara 4y ago
> More than 95% of my personal communication ... is in WhatsApp This is wild to me. I'm squarely in the middle of the millennial generation and I've never used WhatsApp and I've never known anyone that uses it. Nearly all of my personal communication is through Messages on my iPhone/iPad/Mac.
- kookamamie 4y ago
  You must live in a very special bubble then, given that Android's market share is currently at 72 %.
  - caseyohara 4y ago
    72% globally, sure. iOS dominates where I live https://gs.statcounter.com/os-market-share/mobile/united-states-of-america https://gs.statcounter.com/os-market-share/mobile/united-sta... I would estimate iOS has 99% market share among my social network, including nuclear and extended family. It’s been a long time since I’ve seen a green bubble.
Evidlo 4y ago
That sounds horrible to be so locked-in.
- trebbble 4y ago
  We're not, so it isn't.
  - asdff 4y ago
    You just said 95% of your communication happens through one app, if that isn't locked in then what is it, locked in with visitation rights?
    - trebbble 4y ago
      Since we can switch any time enough folks feel like moving over some of the major group threads to something else, how are we locked in? I can't really think of any time I didn't do nearly all of my communication over one or maybe two channels. In the 1990s, 95+% by landline phone. Then ICQ + Phone. Then SMS. Then WhatsApp. I also do 95+% of my driving in a single car, and 95+% of my text editing in a single program. 95ish% of my browsing in a single browser. Not locked in to those, either—in all three cases I've switched before without difficulty, and likely will again. I have no idea where the lock-in notion's coming from.
    - kelnos 4y ago
      "Locked in" doesn't just mean "I use a single thing for everything". It means that switching costs are high. With the exception of losing chat history (which I was surprised to find most people don't seem to care about), switching costs between chat platforms are virtually nonexistent.
- simonjgreen 4y ago
  Locked in to WhatsApp as opposed to iMessage? At least it works on all platforms
- kgeist 4y ago
  I'm not sure what "locked-in" means here. If something happens to WhatsApp (becomes paid-only, abandoned), you can use Telegram, Viber etc. Maybe the only problem is that you can lose chat history when switching, and that you must make sure all your friends/family migrate to the same service...
  - adev_ 4y ago
    > I'm not sure what "locked-in" means here. If something happens to WhatsApp (becomes paid-only, abandoned), you can use Telegram, Viber etc. Maybe the only problem is that you can lose chat history when switching, and that you must make sure all your friends/family migrate to the same service... And get your contact spread over 4 differents messaging App and consequently have all of them installed.
  - sneak 4y ago
    Something did happen to WhatsApp: it got bought out and now embeds Facebook spyware. It's time to switch to Signal. (Telegram and most of the others are not end to end encrypted.)
s17n 4y ago
Yes, "everyone" was an exaggeration. But whatsapp usage in the US is pretty small. iMessage/sms and fb messenger are the only apps with enough market share to matter.
kelnos 4y ago
I won't claim like a sibling that this is "wild", because I think it's not that surprising that different people have different social circles and different group dynamics. But I too am an older US millennial (xennial, if we want to be trendy and overly specific), and my one-on-one communications are almost all on SMS. My group chats are mostly on Signal, WhatsApp, and Slack. I have a few one-on-one chats on Signal and WhatsApp, but the bulk of them are over SMS.
deleted 4y ago
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caseyohara 4y ago

> More than 95% of my personal communication ... is in WhatsApp This is wild to me. I'm squarely in the middle of the millennial generation and I've never used WhatsApp and I've never known anyone that uses it. Nearly all of my personal communication is through Messages on my iPhone/iPad/Mac.

kookamamie 4y ago
You must live in a very special bubble then, given that Android's market share is currently at 72 %.
- caseyohara 4y ago
  72% globally, sure. iOS dominates where I live https://gs.statcounter.com/os-market-share/mobile/united-states-of-america https://gs.statcounter.com/os-market-share/mobile/united-sta... I would estimate iOS has 99% market share among my social network, including nuclear and extended family. It’s been a long time since I’ve seen a green bubble.

Evidlo 4y ago

That sounds horrible to be so locked-in.

trebbble 4y ago
We're not, so it isn't.
- asdff 4y ago
  You just said 95% of your communication happens through one app, if that isn't locked in then what is it, locked in with visitation rights?
  - trebbble 4y ago
    Since we can switch any time enough folks feel like moving over some of the major group threads to something else, how are we locked in? I can't really think of any time I didn't do nearly all of my communication over one or maybe two channels. In the 1990s, 95+% by landline phone. Then ICQ + Phone. Then SMS. Then WhatsApp. I also do 95+% of my driving in a single car, and 95+% of my text editing in a single program. 95ish% of my browsing in a single browser. Not locked in to those, either—in all three cases I've switched before without difficulty, and likely will again. I have no idea where the lock-in notion's coming from.
  - kelnos 4y ago
    "Locked in" doesn't just mean "I use a single thing for everything". It means that switching costs are high. With the exception of losing chat history (which I was surprised to find most people don't seem to care about), switching costs between chat platforms are virtually nonexistent.
simonjgreen 4y ago
Locked in to WhatsApp as opposed to iMessage? At least it works on all platforms
kgeist 4y ago
I'm not sure what "locked-in" means here. If something happens to WhatsApp (becomes paid-only, abandoned), you can use Telegram, Viber etc. Maybe the only problem is that you can lose chat history when switching, and that you must make sure all your friends/family migrate to the same service...
- adev_ 4y ago
  > I'm not sure what "locked-in" means here. If something happens to WhatsApp (becomes paid-only, abandoned), you can use Telegram, Viber etc. Maybe the only problem is that you can lose chat history when switching, and that you must make sure all your friends/family migrate to the same service... And get your contact spread over 4 differents messaging App and consequently have all of them installed.
- sneak 4y ago
  Something did happen to WhatsApp: it got bought out and now embeds Facebook spyware. It's time to switch to Signal. (Telegram and most of the others are not end to end encrypted.)

s17n 4y ago

Yes, "everyone" was an exaggeration. But whatsapp usage in the US is pretty small. iMessage/sms and fb messenger are the only apps with enough market share to matter.

kelnos 4y ago

I won't claim like a sibling that this is "wild", because I think it's not that surprising that different people have different social circles and different group dynamics. But I too am an older US millennial (xennial, if we want to be trendy and overly specific), and my one-on-one communications are almost all on SMS. My group chats are mostly on Signal, WhatsApp, and Slack. I have a few one-on-one chats on Signal and WhatsApp, but the bulk of them are over SMS.

deleted 4y ago

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