WhatsApp is much worse. Here in Europe we use it like TOO MUCH. We just can't switch to Signal, we need it to text/chat friends, people we don't know yet, businesses, etc.
WhatsApp is huge in many countries. You and I may have the tech skill and privacy concerns to move to something like signal but 99% of users either don't care or aren't aware of the difference.
Seriously. In the meantime, the rest of the world all uses WhatsApp. For group chat it's hard to beat. I use signal with family and some friends but getting people to switch is impossible. And allegedly it has group chat but it's not obvious how that works even to a techie like me. Asking people to switch phone platforms is ridiculous, especially people from poorer countries where an iPhone costs at least a couple months' salary. Lately I've also used keybase with another friend and it seems promising but the user base is almost nonexistent.
Whatsapp is used (at least here in the EU) for a lot more than staying in touch with your friends. E.g. having a young kid, it's used for: the class' group, arranging playdates, etc. Not using Whatsapp makes it much harder to arrange your social life and that of your kids.
Then there are also many organizations/companies that use Whatsapp to set appointments, for chat support, etc.
In many EU countries Whatsapp is pretty much replaced SMS. Only a small minority of folks have Signal or Telegram. iMessage is probably the only other thing that shows as a blip on the radar, but only a portion of the population has iDevices.
I agree that this is a bad situation, but WhatsApp became popular when it was still independent and their profit model was charging 1 Euro per year (which was much cheaper than SMS). Now abandoning Whatsapp is difficult due to network effects.
But he’s right. There’s no meaningful usage of it outside of America. WhatsApp is king everywhere else.
Anecdotally more people I know use Signal than iMessage, including my non tech savvy sisters and friends. iMessage is too weird and Android too prevalent for anyone to consider using it where I am from (the U.K.)
Also in the UK and I've just opted to flat-out refuse to use WhatsApp. I think a lot of people want to stop using WhatsApp but are afraid to do so because of the imagined repercussions or a fear of missing out. I say to hell with that and I've found that, since there are, in fact, plenty of alternatives that work, people who need to communicate with me are able to do so perfectly well. A few non-tech oriented contacts have even installed Signal as a result of my stubbornness, including my landlord funnily enough.
None of those services had even a fraction of the market penetration that WhatsApp has (in Europe and basically most places that are not North America.)
WhatsApp is used by teenagers, great-grandparents, businesses, everyone. When you give someone your number in Europe, they won't ask how to contact you, they will just send you a message on WhatsApp 100% of the time. Only tech nerds and small groups use Signal etc.
To be clear, I don't think this is a good thing. But it is simply the reality of the world. It's been like this for 10 years with no signs of changing. WhatsApp could of course die one day, but only if Meta does something categorically stupid or unpopular that forces people off the platform (eg, what Twitter is doing).
WhatsApp is not a social media platform and that's precisely why it is so universally used.
WhatsApp/Signal involve other people you want to communicate with having those apps, which is fairly unlikely in the US (at least outside of tech/international social groups). Only chat apps out here you can count on are facebook messenger, sms/rcs, groupme, or imessage. iMessage is probably the best of these.
In the UK I don't know a person without WhatsApp, pretty much everyone uses it. I don't know a single person who has signal.
If I say to a friend "I'll message you on WhatsApp" they will be like "ok great".
If I say to a friend "I'll message you on Signal" they will be like "What is that? Oh I have to download something? Don't you have WhatsApp? Screw it just send me a text."
So you can't really say "Apart from larger user base why do people use it?". It's like saying "Apart from an inability to breathe, why don't people live underwater?"
Network effects. In the US at least WhatsApp and Signal are barely used in comparison to iMessage, despite them being solid cross platform alternatives.
I find that in the US, anyone who communicates with people in other countries uses Whatsapp. It was the first easy way to communicate across borders and not have to worry about international charges. It’s also better than SMS/MMS.
Everyone I know here (UK) uses WhatsApp as their default communication tool. I have a few friends using Signal or Telegram, but I'd say WhatsApp is by and large the default, at least for my social circle.
I'm in the UK and use iMessage and Signal pretty much exclusively. I don't think I know anyone who actually uses WhatsApp outside of school parent groups.
WhatsApp is much worse. Here in Europe we use it like TOO MUCH. We just can't switch to Signal, we need it to text/chat friends, people we don't know yet, businesses, etc.
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