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Comment by hei-lima

13 hours ago

In countries where SMS isn't as widespread as it is in the US, the use of WhatsApp is much more common.

I live in one of those countries, and I don't think I've ever had to use it to communicate with someone on another continent. I think most of its use is simply local, for your community or friend group.

The downside for me is basically the lack of appeal for a non-tech user (like my parents) to voluntarily want to stop using an app they've been using for, what, 10-12 years? It’s not that big of a deal; everyone uses Instagram or Facebook (maybe)... WhatsApp is definitely going to make the process difficult, too.

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hei-lima

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stef25  4 hours ago

> SMS

Here in EU you pay for that. Soon as you send an image, you get charged extra. Completely useless compared to Whatsapp

  • franga2000  4 hours ago

    Here in EU even the 5 €/month phone plans have unlimited SMS. As soon as you want to talk to someone without Whatsapp, you need to figure out which other apps they're on. Completely useless compared to SMS

    Have you considered that the EU isn't one country?

thevillagechief  13 hours ago

Whatsapp is more popular in the US than you'd think. Probably due to a large immigrant population. I'm in several groups that use the channels feature to organize things like soccer, game nights etc. Most people with family abroad use Whatsapp, and that's a huge portion of the US.

nozzlegear  12 hours ago

SMS isn't widespread in the US, iMessage is.

  • B1FIDO  1 hour ago

    SMS is very widespread in the United States.

    All the B2C services I work with are sending SMS to my phone. Not RCS, not iMessage: they are sending SMS messages.

    All the MFA providers, such as Twilio and Okta, are sending SMS.

    All the political campaign spammers are sending SMS.

    All the reminders for appointments and bills are sending SMS.

    All the notifications for apps where Push isn't good enough: they're sending SMS.

    If user-to-user communication is using iMessage then that is fine. I have noticed that only about 2 of my human contacts use RCS, and at least 2 of them are using iPhones and not Androids for it. So that's some anecdata for ya!

  • xvedejas  11 hours ago

    It all depends on age group in my experience. My friends all a bit older than me prefer Messenger for everything. My friends all younger than me prefer Discord. I think my parents and their generation use iMessage, but I use WhatsApp with them. My generation used to use snapchat a lot, I think, but I never got on that boat.

    • nozzlegear  8 hours ago

      > My friends all younger than me prefer Discord.

      That's interesting; I have and use discord myself (owner of a 300+ member server for my WoW guild), but I've never really considered it a messaging app in the same way I do iMessage, WhatsApp, and so on. I think because everyone is pseudo anonymous, it's more like social media to me. Plus I've got the phone numbers and iMessage groups for close friends I've made over discord.

      Given its popularity among gamers of all nationalities, I wonder where discord stacks up in relation to the EU's DMA?

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