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I haven't used WhatsApp, but from what I can tell it runs on a lot of platforms, including feature phones. An iPhone app is of no use to someone who can't affor

by qw 13y ago

I haven't used WhatsApp, but from what I can tell it runs on a lot of platforms, including feature phones. An iPhone app is of no use to someone who can't afford one. Perhaps there are more affordable cheap Chinese Android phones these days, but WhatsApp started in 2009 It's also a network effect where people use it because their friends use it. I have the same questions about Craigslist. There were certainly a lot of free competitors at the time, but somehow they managed to attract users.

krick 13y ago
Oh, feature phones… Yeah, that must be it. I was thinking about smartphone apps. Skype has been around for years even before smartphones became popular. Last smartphone I had was way before Android was born, so I can't exactly name rivals of WhatsApp, but I'm sure I heard about many of them even before I heard about WhatsApp. There're many messengers (even completely free ones), there're bridges between them, there's Viber. But, yes, availability on feature phones explains a lot.