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This is such a weirdly US specific issue. It's hard to understand why people in this country refuse to adopt a data-based messaging service such as Signal or Wh

by pwpw 4y ago

This is such a weirdly US specific issue. It's hard to understand why people in this country refuse to adopt a data-based messaging service such as Signal or WhatsApp like the rest of the world has. Why are US citizens so set on having a terrible experience when messaging half of the population? How did other countries decide that using platform agnostic messaging services are better? I believe the UK has a similar split in Android/iOS users, yet they largely use WhatsApp. In a way, it feels perfectly inline with America. We use Imperial when everyone else uses Metric. We use Fahrenheit when everyone else uses Celsius. But in this case, it's not as if our government led us down this path. The problem was entirely created by our market of users. Ultimately, poor communication stifles society and innovation. It's in all of our best interests to improve the current situation. Sure, better alternatives such as Signal exist, but we will have to move mountains to convert everyone onto a new service. For now, I think it's best if we all apply pressure to Apple to adopt RCS. It's significantly better than where we are now, and that's a good thing.

TheRealPomax 4y ago
Ah yes, whatsapp, that bastion of privacy, and not at all a messaging service that exists primarily for Meta to mine. If everyone was on Signal, sure, but if everyone's on Whatsapp, maybe not the kind of thing to go "why don't you just do this too, why are North Americans so backward?" for something owned by what is basically still just Facebook.
- baby 4y ago
  Oh yes, let’s ignore the fact that whatsapp has end to end encryption
  - hot_gril 4y ago
    That doesn't mean a whole lot.
    - baby 4y ago
      If you don’t know what these words mean sure
      - hot_gril 4y ago
        I know what the words mean, but I don't know what the ends are doing. Facebook practically controls either end, unless users are reverse-engineering. I also don't know what the middle is doing. Client still trusts the server to give the correct identity aka pubkey for the other clients. Server could give its own and mitm, like a corrupt root CA for TLS. Yes this requires more deliberate action on FB's part, so it's at least better than non-e2ee, but not trustless like people often claim. This issue isn't at all unique to WhatsApp.
        baby 4y ago
        No the middle is not trusted, that’s the whole point of end to end encryption. Users can check security keys. Also yes some people are reverse engineering clients. If you’re claiming that the whatsapp clients are backdoored and faking the end to end encryption claim that would be a pretty big news
        hot_gril 4y ago
        The middle is trusted for the identity exchange and not afterwards. This is fundamental and has nothing to do with what protocol is used. If you explain to me an e2ee messaging protocol with a centralized server that you think is trustless, I can always show you a leap of faith in there. The first time your client messages another on WhatsApp, it knows nothing other than the phone number and has to somehow go through WhatsApp to exchange keys with the other client. WhatsApp can simply fake that entire exchange. Now, WhatsApp also lets you physically visit another user and scan a QR code to verify the identity out-of-band, which escapes that "centralized server" limitation I mentioned, but few use that feature. Compare this to how HTTPS works; you trust the certificate authority unless you gather the certs yourself. I doubt the clients are backdoored to defeat the encryption, but idk what advertising metrics they're sending or what might change in the future.
1270018080 4y ago
It's just too late for anyone to switch. The network effect went in Apple's favor. It could've happened to any country.
joenot443 4y ago
This might be news to you, but huge amounts of land in Canada and the US is still not well served by fast cell service. In those places, you often have an unreliable single bar 3G or 2G connection, and using a data heavy messenger like WhatsApp is entirely unrealistic.
asdff 4y ago
Because of historical reasons. Americans had free texting for decades. Entire segments of phones were released dedicated to the texting experience with full keyboards. When the iphone came out it had unlimited data, but it was the exception not the norm, and it was slow as hell. People don't want to use data for something they already got for free, plus there's the whole network effect issue. Everyone has a phone number, not everyone is going to be on whatever chat platform you insisted on using. Imo I think its better this way, using this do it all technology that works on a modern phone or the flip phone my dad has, versus being reliant on whatsapp and therefore Meta.
- simonjgreen 4y ago
  For what it's worth all the reasons you listed also apply to the UK market, however WhatsApp dominates here so I think there's a missing piece to the puzzle.
  - asdff 4y ago
    I would guess UK has better cell coverage than the U.S. Data is too unreliable while you are out and about to be reliant on a chat app versus a text that will pretty much always reach you.
dt2m 4y ago
A good argument I've heard is that in Europe, when people got their first mobile phone contracts, you were charged per SMS message, whereas in the US, unlimited texting was included in your plan. The consequence of this was that in Europe, people preferred free online messaging over costly SMS. 20+ years down the line and old habits die hard.
crazygringo 4y ago
> This is such a weirdly US specific issue. It's hard to understand why people in this country refuse to adopt a data-based messaging service It makes sense if you look at the history. For various reasons, the US was late to the party on text messaging at all. I remember back in ~2002, traveling the world and discovering people used SMS, when back home in the US it didn't really exist, at least not between different carriers. BUT internationally, text messages were also often expensive, a few might add up to the price of a coffee. So, as soon as data plans became a thing, it was a no-brainer for everyone internationally to switch to data-based messaging (like WhatsApp) -- it could save you like a hundred dollars a month. On the other hand, when carriers in the US sorted out compatibility issues and SMS's became a thing later on, it was generally unlimited on most monthly plans. So people in the US never switched from SMS to data messaging because there was no financial incentive to do so, like there had been around the world. Seen in this light, it shouldn't be hard to understand at all. It's all about whether SMS's were expensive or free when data plans became popular. And so for most people in the US most of the time, SMS does everything you need, so why on earth would you go download a separate app? Nobody's "refusing", they're just following the path of least friction and getting on with their day.
kingrazor 4y ago
I can expect anyone who has a cell phone to be able to receive SMS. When I first started using a cell phone in 2007, that's all that was available. Or at least, it's all I knew that was available. Every phone I've owned since then has had the capability to use SMS, and I've never had a need to use anything else. So I don't see why I'd bother with something like Signal or WhatsApp, when there's no guarantee that the person I want to talk to will have it, and they don't offer anything I need that SMS/MMS doesn't already provide.
- ripe 4y ago
  In many countries SMS can get expensive, especially for international use, depending on the phone billing policy. In poorer countries people often use free wifi areas for data-based messaging. Hence the popularity of WhatsApp. Even if you have a limited mobile data plan, WhatsApp uses the capacity very efficiently, so it's still affordable.
stetrain 4y ago
The problem is which one? I don't use iMessage much, but there isn't One Alternative that everyone has conglomerated on. Some groups use Whatsapp. Some use Facebook Messenger. Some use Discord. I jump around between all of them. But if you have someone's phone number you can at least text them.
hot_gril 4y ago
Cause it's not terrible. It still works ok the way it is, and people tend to use FB Messenger or something if they want a more complex group chat with Android users in it. Considering that they do this even if it's an all-Android chat, I don't think it's Apple's fault, as scummy as they act with SMS. Also, people don't care for metric cause it's not better. Basing your system around the physical properties of water doesn't help for daily usage, just for some sciences and yes for nerds to feel better. For example, many digital thermostats have to add increments of 0.5 when you switch to Celsius since each degree is twice as coarse, and you can feel the difference. Put ˚F and ˚C weather forecasts side by side, and ask people which they prefer. It's a nice spread of 0-100˚F outdoors usually, and you basically don't go outside if it's not. Freeway speeds, 0-85MPH legally and 100 means trouble. Freeway miles, about 1 per minute. Feet/mile is weird, but that's cause nobody converts miles to feet; you don't care to compare say a trip distance to the height of a human.
- xcskier56 4y ago
  I will agree that one of the few places that the imperial system is hands down better than metric is that on the highway it's roughly 1 mile per minute. That and it's just barely possible to run a mile in under 4 minutes, so makes for a nice clean time barrier. But these are just coincidences and are the exception not the rule
  - hot_gril 4y ago
    They are coincidences since these units were created well before modern cars, but they seem to have been created with reasonable relations to human constraints, instead of water.
    - spiderice 4y ago
      Everything you said about temperature is 100% true. Fahrenheit is simply better for day to day use. I disagree with you about distance measurements. I think the relationship between millimeters, centimeters, and meters is so much better than the relationship between 1/8th inch, an inch, and a foot, that it makes up for the convenience of traveling roughly one mile per minute on the freeway.
baby 4y ago
Most people I know in the US use whatsapp (except for like one person)
deleted 4y ago
[deleted]

by pwpw 4y ago

TheRealPomax 4y ago

Ah yes, whatsapp, that bastion of privacy, and not at all a messaging service that exists primarily for Meta to mine. If everyone was on Signal, sure, but if everyone's on Whatsapp, maybe not the kind of thing to go "why don't you just do this too, why are North Americans so backward?" for something owned by what is basically still just Facebook.

baby 4y ago
Oh yes, let’s ignore the fact that whatsapp has end to end encryption
- hot_gril 4y ago
  That doesn't mean a whole lot.
  - baby 4y ago
    If you don’t know what these words mean sure
    - hot_gril 4y ago
      I know what the words mean, but I don't know what the ends are doing. Facebook practically controls either end, unless users are reverse-engineering. I also don't know what the middle is doing. Client still trusts the server to give the correct identity aka pubkey for the other clients. Server could give its own and mitm, like a corrupt root CA for TLS. Yes this requires more deliberate action on FB's part, so it's at least better than non-e2ee, but not trustless like people often claim. This issue isn't at all unique to WhatsApp.
      - baby 4y ago
        No the middle is not trusted, that’s the whole point of end to end encryption. Users can check security keys. Also yes some people are reverse engineering clients. If you’re claiming that the whatsapp clients are backdoored and faking the end to end encryption claim that would be a pretty big news
        hot_gril 4y ago
        The middle is trusted for the identity exchange and not afterwards. This is fundamental and has nothing to do with what protocol is used. If you explain to me an e2ee messaging protocol with a centralized server that you think is trustless, I can always show you a leap of faith in there. The first time your client messages another on WhatsApp, it knows nothing other than the phone number and has to somehow go through WhatsApp to exchange keys with the other client. WhatsApp can simply fake that entire exchange. Now, WhatsApp also lets you physically visit another user and scan a QR code to verify the identity out-of-band, which escapes that "centralized server" limitation I mentioned, but few use that feature. Compare this to how HTTPS works; you trust the certificate authority unless you gather the certs yourself. I doubt the clients are backdoored to defeat the encryption, but idk what advertising metrics they're sending or what might change in the future.

1270018080 4y ago

It's just too late for anyone to switch. The network effect went in Apple's favor. It could've happened to any country.

joenot443 4y ago

This might be news to you, but huge amounts of land in Canada and the US is still not well served by fast cell service. In those places, you often have an unreliable single bar 3G or 2G connection, and using a data heavy messenger like WhatsApp is entirely unrealistic.

asdff 4y ago

Because of historical reasons. Americans had free texting for decades. Entire segments of phones were released dedicated to the texting experience with full keyboards. When the iphone came out it had unlimited data, but it was the exception not the norm, and it was slow as hell. People don't want to use data for something they already got for free, plus there's the whole network effect issue. Everyone has a phone number, not everyone is going to be on whatever chat platform you insisted on using. Imo I think its better this way, using this do it all technology that works on a modern phone or the flip phone my dad has, versus being reliant on whatsapp and therefore Meta.

simonjgreen 4y ago
For what it's worth all the reasons you listed also apply to the UK market, however WhatsApp dominates here so I think there's a missing piece to the puzzle.
- asdff 4y ago
  I would guess UK has better cell coverage than the U.S. Data is too unreliable while you are out and about to be reliant on a chat app versus a text that will pretty much always reach you.

dt2m 4y ago

A good argument I've heard is that in Europe, when people got their first mobile phone contracts, you were charged per SMS message, whereas in the US, unlimited texting was included in your plan. The consequence of this was that in Europe, people preferred free online messaging over costly SMS. 20+ years down the line and old habits die hard.

crazygringo 4y ago

> This is such a weirdly US specific issue. It's hard to understand why people in this country refuse to adopt a data-based messaging service It makes sense if you look at the history. For various reasons, the US was late to the party on text messaging at all. I remember back in ~2002, traveling the world and discovering people used SMS, when back home in the US it didn't really exist, at least not between different carriers. BUT internationally, text messages were also often expensive, a few might add up to the price of a coffee. So, as soon as data plans became a thing, it was a no-brainer for everyone internationally to switch to data-based messaging (like WhatsApp) -- it could save you like a hundred dollars a month. On the other hand, when carriers in the US sorted out compatibility issues and SMS's became a thing later on, it was generally unlimited on most monthly plans. So people in the US never switched from SMS to data messaging because there was no financial incentive to do so, like there had been around the world. Seen in this light, it shouldn't be hard to understand at all. It's all about whether SMS's were expensive or free when data plans became popular. And so for most people in the US most of the time, SMS does everything you need, so why on earth would you go download a separate app? Nobody's "refusing", they're just following the path of least friction and getting on with their day.

kingrazor 4y ago

I can expect anyone who has a cell phone to be able to receive SMS. When I first started using a cell phone in 2007, that's all that was available. Or at least, it's all I knew that was available. Every phone I've owned since then has had the capability to use SMS, and I've never had a need to use anything else. So I don't see why I'd bother with something like Signal or WhatsApp, when there's no guarantee that the person I want to talk to will have it, and they don't offer anything I need that SMS/MMS doesn't already provide.

ripe 4y ago
In many countries SMS can get expensive, especially for international use, depending on the phone billing policy. In poorer countries people often use free wifi areas for data-based messaging. Hence the popularity of WhatsApp. Even if you have a limited mobile data plan, WhatsApp uses the capacity very efficiently, so it's still affordable.

stetrain 4y ago

The problem is which one? I don't use iMessage much, but there isn't One Alternative that everyone has conglomerated on. Some groups use Whatsapp. Some use Facebook Messenger. Some use Discord. I jump around between all of them. But if you have someone's phone number you can at least text them.

hot_gril 4y ago

Cause it's not terrible. It still works ok the way it is, and people tend to use FB Messenger or something if they want a more complex group chat with Android users in it. Considering that they do this even if it's an all-Android chat, I don't think it's Apple's fault, as scummy as they act with SMS. Also, people don't care for metric cause it's not better. Basing your system around the physical properties of water doesn't help for daily usage, just for some sciences and yes for nerds to feel better. For example, many digital thermostats have to add increments of 0.5 when you switch to Celsius since each degree is twice as coarse, and you can feel the difference. Put ˚F and ˚C weather forecasts side by side, and ask people which they prefer. It's a nice spread of 0-100˚F outdoors usually, and you basically don't go outside if it's not. Freeway speeds, 0-85MPH legally and 100 means trouble. Freeway miles, about 1 per minute. Feet/mile is weird, but that's cause nobody converts miles to feet; you don't care to compare say a trip distance to the height of a human.

xcskier56 4y ago
I will agree that one of the few places that the imperial system is hands down better than metric is that on the highway it's roughly 1 mile per minute. That and it's just barely possible to run a mile in under 4 minutes, so makes for a nice clean time barrier. But these are just coincidences and are the exception not the rule
- hot_gril 4y ago
  They are coincidences since these units were created well before modern cars, but they seem to have been created with reasonable relations to human constraints, instead of water.
  - spiderice 4y ago
    Everything you said about temperature is 100% true. Fahrenheit is simply better for day to day use. I disagree with you about distance measurements. I think the relationship between millimeters, centimeters, and meters is so much better than the relationship between 1/8th inch, an inch, and a foot, that it makes up for the convenience of traveling roughly one mile per minute on the freeway.

baby 4y ago

Most people I know in the US use whatsapp (except for like one person)

deleted 4y ago

[deleted]