8 ms·
How WhatsApp became an unstoppable global cultural force
- exabrial 2y agoWhat worries me is FB is in charge. It’s allegedly secure, but closed source. What’s their profit model here anyway?
- robertlagrant 2y agoI don't think it makes money. My best guess is it just was bought so no-one else bought it and linked a billion users into their social network.
- kobalsky 2y agoWhatsapp Business. $0.03-0.06 per conversation / authentication (multiple messages within 24hs) depending if it's transactional or marketing. SMS providers are unreliable and expensive, it's eating their business.
- IshKebab 2y ago> SMS providers are unreliable and expensive, it's eating their business. Is it actually though? At least in the UK I still get every business message (delivery notifications, booking confirmations etc.) via SMS. I haven't received a single one via WhatsApp. And WhatsApp has 100% penetration here so that isn't a barrier.
- gfarah 2y agoI can speak for LATAM, here WhatsApp it's much more reliable and faster than SMS
- insane_dreamer 2y agoDrives users to FB, IG, and therefore ... ads.
- asplake 2y agoDoes it? I’m a regular WhatsApp user and haven’t touched any other Meta app in a long time. Easy to forget that they’re connected.
- itikasp 2y agoHey, I am one of the editors on this story, and we had the same question. Sharing with you a separate story from this package that explains the math/finance of WhatsApp. Hope this answers your question: https://restofworld.org/2024/how-whatsapp-for-business-changed-the-world/ https://restofworld.org/2024/how-whatsapp-for-business-chang...
- noprocrasted 2y agoIt collects people's contacts and social graphs, which are then used to influence ad targeting in Meta's other platforms. That's why it insists so badly on having full access to your contacts.
- dcsommer 2y agoThis is absolutely not true and would immediately trigger lawsuits across the globe. WhatsApp and Meta data separation is extremely strict. Source: I work at WhatsApp and also https://faq.whatsapp.com/1303762270462331 https://faq.whatsapp.com/1303762270462331 > We need your contacts to provide the service, but don’t share your contacts with Meta.
- toast0 2y agoI would be very careful about making such statements. It is absolutely true that WhatsApp collects your contacts' phone numbers and your social graph. Unless WhatsApp has stopped doing that, in which case it should make a big announcement. I don't know if the social graph is used outside WhatsApp, so that part may not be true, but it is within the privacy policy to do so (at least the one I see, EU may have a different one), the privacy policy says WhatsApp may share information with Meta to among other things: > improving their services and your experiences using them, such as making suggestions for you (for example, of friends or group connections, or of interesting content), personalizing features and content, helping you complete purchases and transactions, and showing relevant offers and ads across the Meta Company Products; And there have been waves of policy updates, notifications etc specifically to get these terms. That doesn't mean Find my Friends gets this information, but I thought there was at least discussion of it.
- dcsommer 2y agoThis is not me making some grand new commitment. It's right in the privacy policy and also summarized here: https://faq.whatsapp.com/1303762270462331 https://faq.whatsapp.com/1303762270462331 > We need your contacts to provide the service, but don’t share your contacts with Meta. I'm frustrated that people even at HN allow themselves to indulge in conspiracy theories that would be immediately whistle-blowed or reported on. There are thousands of people that work on or with WhatsApp and related products within Meta who would notice, not to mention all the data separation audits that happen.
- bonzini 2y agoThey bought WhatsApp to keep businesses on Facebook and to prevent it from being an actual "everything app", though in the end they started offering WhatsApp Business anyway. A lot of this became public from FTC vs Meta: https://www.businessinsider.com/ftc-facebook-lawsuit-makes-zuckerberg-emails-public-instagram-whatsapp-competition-2020-12 https://www.businessinsider.com/ftc-facebook-lawsuit-makes-z...
- MangoCoffee 2y ago>What’s their profit model here anyway? users data, perhaps? your data feed into FB's machine. I'm sure they will figured out how to make money.
- impish9208 2y agoPosted yesterday: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42375926 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42375926
- Tomte 2y ago[flagged]
- Gooblebrai 2y agoYou mean 4 days ago?
- onetokeoverthe 2y ago[flagged]
- gnabgib 2y agoSmall discussion (10 points, 13 hours ago, 5 comments) https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42387220 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42387220
- insane_dreamer 2y agoWhat surprises me is that while WhatsApp has become an "everything" app in many parts of the world, much like WeChat in China, it has not done so in the US. In fact, I don't know anyone in the US who uses WhatsApp "internally" (the only times I use it is to communicate with people outside the US). The description of WhatsApp here is exactly what Elon wanted X to become (which clearly didn't and almost certainly now won't happen). But I'm curious as to why such as "super-app" hasn't taken root in the US like it has elsewhere.
- itikasp 2y agoHi, I am one of the editors of this story, and we have also thought about this. In my opinion, one of the reasons why WhatsApp hasn't become the "everything app" in the US is because Apple/iOS devices are very popular in the country, where as in much of the world, Android is popular thanks to the availability of cheaper devices. Apple offers a suit of apps and features, including Facetime, that's not available for Android users, which adds to the popularity of WhatsApp.
- brudgers 2y agoFacetime was announced as an intended open standard. Shortly, Apple realized their advantage of keeping it closed.
- Uehreka 2y agoIdk how much of an advantage this has turned out to be. Like GP said, FaceTime is not as popular outside of the US because it isn’t on Android. Even its US popularity is limited by the fact that it doesn’t work with Android/PC users, mandating that you have another app (which likely works as well as FaceTime) on hand for those situations. I think this is more of an example of them shooting themselves in the foot for no advantage, but not caring because they have like 300 feet.
- Jtsummers 2y agoA patent lawsuit kept them from opening it up at the time. I think it's only recently been resolved.
- unnamed76ri 2y ago[flagged]
- IshKebab 2y agoIt's highly regional, so if you live in e.g. America where iMessage is dominant then you wouldn't. But WhatsApp is the dominant messaging platform in most of the world. E.g. in the UK it has basically 100% market share.
- e1g 2y agoAnd by “America” you mostly mean “USA”. In Mexico, everyone including the government, my bank, lawyers, and even telco would WhatsApp me.
- zanderwohl 2y agoIn the English language "America" typically refers to the US because Anglos don't pretend North and South America are a single continent while separating Europe and Asia. There's no ambiguity when someone says "America".
- e1g 2y agoIt's comparable to saying "In Britain they speak English". This is correct enough for a sports bar but reveals ignorance of what the words "Britain" or "English" mean, plus a certain disregard for cultures.
- mvavassori 2y agoWhatsApp dominates in all Western Europe, India, most of South America, most of Africa and more... 3 billion users and counting.
- crop_rotation 2y agoWhatsapp is such a big cultural force that many of my non technical friends and family members refuse to use anything else. No mail for full res photos is one thing, but you can't make them use anything else. Everything lives in Whatsapp. Todos, notes, reminders, sharing stuff (airdrop is the only exception if everyone involved has iOS). It is less because of whatsapp features (Nobody uses any features like payments), and more because of the simplicity and ease of use.
- RustySpottedCat 2y agoUuh, where do you live? I haven't met a single person (technical or non technical) with such an attachment to a single app in my life.
- Kiro 2y agoThe question is where you live where this is not the case. You're the outlier here.
- nemomarx 2y agoI think it's not as prominent as this in the US - probably because the equivalent is Apple messaging systems, if your family / friend group is all in that?
- crop_rotation 2y agoYes the US is one of the only rare places where Whatsapp is not omnipresent (and it is the only presence where RCS has any meaningful chance of ever being used.
- bryant 2y agoThere are many examples all over the world. Plenty of countries have people that have attachments to apps like whatsapp, telegram, etc. All of my friends in brazil, for instance, are entirely attached to whatsapp. I agree with the other reply. Where do you live? I'm surprised that you haven't encountered any. Every city in the US that I visited and every city that I visited internationally has people that attach themselves to one of either whatsapp, telegram, imessage, etc. (I'm kind of excluding wechat here because wechat seems to be forced, but there are plenty of people who have this attachment to wechat as well because of its status as an omni app)
- gmuslera 2y ago... and one ring to bind them. Even if it were an open source app with open governance, the shaping of culture happens at a different layer. And that shaping sometimes is guided and not in the best interest of the users.
- deleted 2y ago[deleted]
- nashashmi 2y agoI still feel like WhatsApp had a stronger position to do better in both developing countries and developed countries. But for some reason unknown, it did not roll out plans and positions fast enough.
- dang 2y agoRecent and related: How WhatsApp for business changed the world - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42366753 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42366753 - Dec 2024 (163 comments)
- elAhmo 2y agoI feel like I am missing something. It is a chat app, one of many, with some features like communities (which feel like extremely large groups) and status updates (which almost every other app does).
- danpalmer 2y agoThe thing you’re missing is network effects. I use WhatsApp because all my family and friends are on it. We’re all on it because it’s the dominant chat network in the UK. It might seem like SMS must be an option because everyone has it, because if you have WA then you’ve got a number and can receive SMS, but that’s not how people view it. SMS is an app like every other (to most people), but it’s an app that doesn’t have their other chats in (only 2FA codes and spam), and one that mostly doesn’t sync to their other devices as well.
- elAhmo 2y agoMaybe I wasn't clear. I do use WhatsApp for friends, family, coworkers and even some business chats. That was my point, it is not a everything app, it is just a chat app.
- danpalmer 2y agoAh apologies, yeah I think there were multiple definitions of that floating around. Some people here are clearly using it to mean "everything" chat, i.e. having no other networks of any significance (which I think WhatsApp is in many places). Others are suggesting it's got aspects of an everything app, with businesses doing support over it, etc, but that's perhaps a naive interpretation of what a WeChat-style everything app is, which in my opinion is the true definition of an everything app, and certainly something that WhatsApp is not.
- Beijinger 2y agoI was surprised when I returned to the US that not everybody uses WhatsApp. I was also using WeChat a lot in Asia. What has become very powerful in my opinion, and it used a lot by larger groups is Telegram.
- ks2048 2y agoI'm in a place where WhatsApp is everywhere - "call/text me" is basically assumed to mean call or send me a message on WhatsApp. But, somehow I don't view it as a "cultural force" the way other social media sites are. I guess because it's just people talking/chatting/sending-pics with their contacts, so there's no algorithm driving/changing peoples' behavior. It's like the cultural force of everyone having cell phones with free (and improved) SMS (which of course is a big change in society). I've also never used WA to meet people, engage with strangers, or try to impress strangers. It's just people I've met in real life. Although, a lot of this article is about the broadcast and "channels" features that I don't really use.
- beAbU 2y agoWhatsApp is basically a conduit or utility at this point. It's a more usable layer on top of raw TCP/IP. Its completely unlike any of the social media services, even telegram. I agree, there is nothing cultural about it. I think its because there are no "discovery" features. You cant search for groups or people or whatever. You need to know someone well enough that they have your mobile number, in order to invite you to social groups etc.
- gardenhedge 2y agoThere are stories like on FB and Instagram. Also, you don't need to know all the people you communicate with - there's often groups for clubs, schools, events, etc.
- lanstin 2y agoThe cultural aspect is that I can't really extend my refusal to use Meta technology to WhatsApp because so many family members and important family data are only available via WhatsApp.
- stackghost 2y agoAll the things you discuss are exactly why Whatsapp is such a great application.
- Gigachad 2y ago
- Stagnant 2y agoI see many people in this thread thinking that WhatsApp took off because of SMS costs, and while that may be true in some countries, at least here in Finland I think the biggest factor were group chats. By 2013-2014 basically every high school and college class had their own whatsapp group chat since it made sharing of videos/photos and keeping in touch with everyone so much easier. By 2017 i'd say the vast majority of smartphone users under 60 years old were using whatsapp and nowadays even my almost 90-year old grandma uses it primarily for video calls and to receive photos/videos. This got me wondering if people in US do not typically have such group chats or whats the alternative?
- erikpukinskis 2y agoI live in California. For me, group chats are predominantly iMessage. FaceTime for video chat. I only know a handful of people with Android phones and they just suffer with poor quality media. I suspect it’s both regionally and class dependent however.
- jejfjfjfjsj 2y agoWhat do you mean by poor quality media? WhatsApp and similar offer exactly the same kind of media transfers that iMessage offers.
- erikpukinskis 2y agoI mean SMS media.
- jejfjfjfjsj 2y agoThat’s exactly why everyone uses third-party messaging instead of SMS/MMS: iMessage, WhatsApp, Telegram etc. I suspect the prevalence of iMessage and its weird mix with SMS/MMS results in people not realizing that it is a third-party service.
- ignoramous 2y agoWhile WhatsApp started as a way to set status ("Can't talk, text only", "Urgent calls only", "At school", "Busy"), the eventual razor-sharp focus by Jan Koum & Brian Acton to replace SMS (not MSN/Y! Messenger, not BBM, not IRC), in my eyes, made it the juggernaut that it became, inspite of the many regional/global clones. - No logins. No sign-ups. Mobile phone number was the username; SIM card, the password. - No central database of messages. No backup & restore. No stickers. No web-based access. Only fast text-based relays. For phones. - Aggressive cross platform focus. Including clients for Blackberry & Symbian, not just mainstream OSes. - Little to no perceptible downtime. Worked just fine in all sorts of flaky networks. Consistently and reliably. - No ads, no spam. - As cheap or cheaper than SMS (£1/yr), but works & roams globally. - Voice notes and media to expand beyond the Anglosphere. Another tidbit I find interesting: Jan used the fact that every time an app's title / description was changed, it would show up at the top in the "new" category of the iOS App Store, to help reach a wider install base. In short, being laid off from Yahoo! to being rejected by Facebook, brought the best out of Jan & Brian. They ran a very unconventional SV startup and got a lot of the details exactly and deliberately right. Not many stood a chance, as evidenced by their eventual £22bn exit.
- openrisk 2y agoWhatsapp is the only app (or any piece of software for that matter) you will actually see embedded in the physical world, in the form of street signs for neighborhood watch groups. Very unfortunate given its now part of an adtech conglomerate. The defacto messaging app for such uses should be Signal.
- Evidlo 2y agoNo, it shouldn't be another walled garden. Go with an actual standardized protocol.
- DrNosferatu 2y agoDon’t forget that WhatsApp worked on every single mobile platform - even feature phones. This gave it a universal appeal.
- marc_abonce 2y agoAnother reason that the article and other comments here are missing is the zero-rating deals that WhatsApp has with virtually all mobile providers, at least in Mexico. Your phone's plan will cover calls and an internet connection up to a certain data cap, but WhatsApp's data usage is uncapped. So, if you want to chat with a less mainstream app you'd end up paying more. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zero-rating https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zero-rating
- notyourwork 2y agoWhich is ridiculous! The internet shouldn’t be able to give preference to some services over others. Bandwidth should be neutral.
- sometimes_all 2y agoWhatsApp in India is inescapable, but also quite useful, primarily because of network effects. But you really have to be careful and sparing with it, else it becomes a nuisance. Thankfully they've done some work to that effect. Example, adding an option to have to seek your permission to join a particular group is a godsend, since family members are all too happy to add you to their group where every post is a nonsensical forward, or random people add you to their "investments" group (pump and dump schemes). Also, considering the scale of WhatsApp, I get far fewer spam than I get in direct phone/SMS communication. Also I can block businesses permanently if they start abusing their messaging privileges. I just wish they had kept it a more chat-focused platform rather than adding other stuff (channels, status, AI agents, etc). It's a pain that I can't disable features I don't need (eg. I don't want to use Meta AI, but I still have to see that annoying icon). But it's Meta, and they don't necessarily respect people not wanting something, so don't think you can do much about it.
- Fire-Dragon-DoL 2y agoThis is the problem I keep mentioning with the very poor definition of "social media". You wouldn't have said old flip phone was a social media, even if effectively whatsapp does the same stuff. There is a big difference between an app pushing you toward "brand yourself" and with algorithm-controlled content and a contacting-app with none of the previous stuff. Yes, they are both "social" in the sense that they allow us to reach other humans, but that's where it ends. I'm sure there are features I don't know about whatsapp though.
- humptybumpty 2y agoI’ve used Whatsapp since 2012. Driving force with 20-30 somethings in early Whatsapp days in Europe was simply the first viable group messaging and sharing photos. And the simplicity of onboarding! It immediately checked all your contacts to see who uses whatsapp. All other apps used usernames and invites. This worked immediately. It worked on both phones, so everyone could join the group. Free SMS was ok, but operators offered typical packages 500,1000 or 3000 free /month so it wasn’t an issue for anyone with a job. But for some it was great. Combine these three factors and it spread like wildfire in few years.
- Leherenn 2y agoFree international messages/calls as well. That's how most of my friends and I started using it: studying abroad is pretty common in Europe with Erasmus, or even simply vacationing. Before that, we were using Skype, but I remember WhatsApp being so much more convenient/better, especially on mobile. If it would have been very costly to send an SMS/call a different US state, I bet WhatsApp would have taken in the US.