Comment by fidotron
5 days ago
The problem is European users are too cheap, and European regulators too short sighted. It makes them hilariously prone to product dumping, where WhatsApp is "free" of course, except it isn't. They then mass adopt the "free" option and act surprised pikachu when it's not actually free.
What you are advocating is forcing a market option to change what it is, when a critical mass of their customers have chosen it precisely because of what it is.
> The problem is European users are too cheap, and European regulators too short sighted.
This seems to be a common issue for all countries, the US included.
(See the Chrome spin-off talks currently taking place.)
> What you are advocating is forcing a market option to change what it is, when a critical mass of their customers have chosen it precisely because of what it is.
Incorrect, users have chosen it for what it precisely was. After a certain size that choice does not exist anymore and the option is also very different compared to the initial choice (between the different app stores available at the time) made by users.
You're also mistaken in thinking that the hardware should automatically imply a specific software. This is not the case and we're going to slowly move to a place where the hardware is independent of the software and vice-versa for smartphones.
> This seems to be a common issue for all countries, the US included.
The US is much more resistant to it, which is a major factor in iOS share being higher and WhatsApp being an almost complete non event.
Similarly those same users bought into the iOS option entirely because of the better privacy enabled by not being "free" in the price sense. In a very real sense Apple are the regulators of their platform in that they define and execute the policies. People buy into it because they like that aspect of things, and prefer the Apple regulations to those created by their governments. The EU want to override the regulations of the platform, except being short sighted they don't appreciate the effects of their suggestions, and so they're being played particularly by Meta.
> This is not the case and we're going to slowly move to a place where the hardware is independent of the software and vice-versa for smartphones.
People have been saying this from the start, but if anything it's now diverging faster than before. If you launch a service today and have no native app presence you will not be regarded as credible in the marketplace.
> The US is much more resistant to it, which is a major factor in iOS share being higher and WhatsApp being an almost complete non event.
iOS has a larger market share in the US because iPhones are a status symbol in America whereas Europeans couldn't care less.
Which in turn makes iMessages market share larger in the US than in Europe.
iPhone market share is also pretty stagnant since 2023 in the US and way down worldwide since then.
If anything, I would consider the US WhatsApp user base numbers (~64M users) to be much more impressive than the iMessage user counts (~130 iPhone owners) because WhatsApp is not installed by default.
> People buy into it because they like that aspect of things, and prefer the Apple regulations to those created by their governments.
This very much has yet to be proven since "those (policies) created by their governments" has not been made possible by Apple yet. If Apple is so confident in their software quality, this additional competition should not be an issue for them.
> If you launch a service today and have no native app presence you will not be regarded as credible in the marketplace.
I meant that you'll buy the hardware but will then have the choice to install different operating systems and app market places. The same way computers have worked for the last 30 years.
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