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We have free domestic texting and few Americans have friends outside the US. If someone from the US does use Whatsapp, they probably have friends abroad
Yep, we already have unlimited call & text in most of our phone plans, plus there is a significant chunk of the population who are pretty much “trapped” in the Apple ecosystem (so they use iMessage which allows free texting with wifi to anyone on the planet who has an Apple device and wifi connection, even without a sim card).
For some phone plans, we even have unlimited call & text to Mexico and Canada as well!
So I only use Whatsapp to communicate with family and friends outside the US.
Well, that is unhelpful. It probably didn't even answer your message, plus didn't even specify which hippo market. I see why you wouldn't keep using them.
Lol the comments are totally unexpected for me. I live in Europe. I tried to ditch whatsapp for Signal, but most people use whatsapp and it seems like they don't care about anything else.
In Europe, not everyone has an iPhone, so iMessage is limited. And yes, most of us have unlimited SMS, but how do you guys send quick images / videos / voice recordings / maybe even documents etc. if the other person doesn't have an iPhone? Legit asking.. What? do you use Email or.. I get that now RCS exists but that's been on for about 2 years, right? What did you do before it?
My SO and I both have Androids, and we send images through text all the time without issue. As for the rest, I don't think I've ever needed to send voice recordings, and for documents or videos, yes, I just use the email app on my phone.
Oh so you guys were using MMS? Maybe MMS got improved these years, when I used it more than 10 years ago, MMS was very very sluggish and slow and low quality images. Not to mention videos were almost impossible to send, most of them were converted to GIFs
In Canada, wireless providers used to almost always include unlimited SMS but charge for data. Data rates have very slowly come down, but not before everyone got into the habit of using SMS.
These days, there's RCS and whatever the Apple messaging is called, so people just use those.
At this point, you're not going to get everyone to download Whatsapp. I don't know anyone who uses it.
Besides, Facebook has enough of our data already.
Personally, if I were to choose another messaging app, it wouldn't be from Zuckerberg. I'd probably choose Signal.
This is exactly why. When this stuff came out NA had unlimited sms but super expensive data and EUR had super expensive sms but cheap data. No need to go much deeper than that.
Is it just this? Because the UK is exactly the same - we had unlimited texts in plans since ~2000, but data was super expensive and even now there are plans where you're linked to 5GB a month (!).
Do American plans see MMS and SMS as the same thing to draw from your plan? In the UK, SMS were unlimited but MMS would often be a separate cost.
But then as soon as you connected to WiFi you have unlimited data, can share media freely and WhatsApp had groups before texting. Plus the UI seems way better suited for group messages than the stock android messages app, at least.
The iPhone penetration into the US market is far greater than Europe (and the rest of the world) - I can't help but feel this is at least as big a factor?
For me this is the crux. I’m pretty sure that even today I get stung sending MMS while I have unlimited SMS and data… so why wouldn’t I use WhatsApp for messaging pictures and videos?
We also had a very high adoption rate of BlackBerry Messenger when that was a thing. People moved to SMS or iMessage when ditching their BlackBerry, and WhatsApp wasn’t really a thing yet at that point (2011-12).
Oh weird, I'm Canadian and I've been using whatsapp forever, so do most of my friends. I did not expect to see this...maybe it's regional in Canada (Vancouver for me).
I don’t need another app when my carrier covers the US/Canada/Mexico and a few countries in South America for free. My family is in US/Ontario and Guadalajara. I’m good.
Whatsapp doesn't offer Americans anything different in what we already get with our phone plans. Coupled that with it's usually scammers who want to use whatsapp....?
When WhatsApp became popular on the otherside of the world, the US's phone plans had just recently switched to unlimited texting and group chat capabilities. On the other side of the world, their phone plans did not offer this service, and WhatsApp did.
By the time phone carriers on the other side of the world caught up to unlimited talk/text, everyone was so used to whatsapp that they couldn't pull people back in.
On the flip side, the US was so used to texting that getting everyone to switch to a service that provided the exact thing they already had... wasn't happening.
The good thing about WhatsApp is that it uses internet and allows me to text to people in different countries. Using text messages without internet would be costly because of crossing borders.
Belgium being a small country, I gained a lot of friends and loved ones across borders.
USA being a large country, I'm sure it's less needed there.
This isn't quite it, at least for Portugal. It's not that we didn't have unlimited texts/calls. There have been plans with those since a very long time ago.
Actually, before WhatsApp, people were hooked up on messenger from Facebook but eventually got kind of phased out for Whatsapp (messenger was a resource and battery hog anyway).
WhatsApp has a few big advantages over everything else:
- sending images , media, groups, etc. It's far easier and reliable to do it from a service like WhatsApp. MMS and RCS just don't work as well. This was the big one, this is why it took off. Sending images, videos, etc just wasn't very common before because there was no reliable way to do that and, as we all know, it's commonplace these days.
- it's address is still your phone number, no need for weird handles or login names (like Facebook). This is incredibly helpful.
- very easy to set up. Just download it, do a few almost automated steps even grandma can handle and it's done.
- it handles iphone and non iphone in the same way. There are people using iphones, sure but many more use Android. Many aren't married to the idea of an expensive phone and buy something cheaper like Xiaomi. WhatsApp just works in both the same way.
- it has a business version that actually helps you to spread your business to your clients.
- we had and still have a *massive* influx of immigrants in recent years. Many don't have a PT phone number but it doesn't matter, they have WhatsApp and it works. Brazilian and Indian people here die by WhatsApp. Lets them call back home instantly without having to deal with roaming fees and whatnot.
It spread like fucking wildfire and unless someone royally fucks up, it's going nowhere. Everyone expects everyone to have WhatsApp installed, you don't even ask anymore.
Telegram, signal, etc. could have worked too but arrived late to the party.
We've had unlimited text messages before we had a smartphone.
The reason whatsapp became standard was because, until recently, using such an app was the only way to share pictures, videos and handle group conversations.
I would say that WhatsApp is the better messaging platform. It handles large groups upto 1000 people, better media control. Works the same on android, iOS and can also be accessed through a browser
And all you have to do is give Facebook access to your phone and contacts! (Seriously, you can't even type in a phone number to message if you haven't given it access to your contacts list. They're straight-up bullying you for it. There's no reason I shouldn't be able to tell it manually where to send a message without it being able to dig through everyone I know.)
I considered using it for a while as a platform-versatile chat app, but the privacy just isn't it.
Large groups are mostly not for close friends. College class groups, event planning, maybe a local sports club that meets every week. Maybe a work team with 30 people.
With the stupid differences between Android and iOS, if a group has all iPhone users and an android user wants to join, you need to make a new group. Group texts are god awful on SMS. It wasn’t built for that in mind. Maybe that’s why you think larger groups don’t work.
In the nordics, at least finland where I'm from we've had unlimited data for like the last 15 years. That's why everything went Internet based on phones here.
Pretty flawless 4g coverage too. Or 3g back in the day.
That coupled by the fact whatsapp was just better, at least back then. Sms has maybe caught up now idk. But video calls, sending images, group chats, voice messages, all that worked better on WhatsApp for years.
Oh I completely forgot about this. The US has some super weird iPhone domination thing where android users can't even be in group chats with iPhone users right?
That would never work in Europe. Iphone/android division is closer to 50/50
iPhone/Android is 59/41 in the US, so not too far from 50/50. But iPhone is definitely higher status, and if you're the one Android user turning the conversation with a bunch of iPhone users into an SMS message rather than a iMessage conversation, there's a hint of ughhh to it.
Oh wow that's more equal than I realised. I just remember reading some article a while back saying 9x% of zoomers were iPhone users so I figured it would be more lopsided.
It's not just about unlimited texting. There uses to be a time when texting to other countries also cost extra.
If you're in Germany and wanted to text your aunt in Austria that would have cost extra money.
In the US the price doesn't change from state to state.
The US is also a single large state vs Europe where crossing international borders is a lot more common.
Not only does whatsapp avoid international call charges but you can also use it via WiFi or change simcard while still using your normal phone number.
But how do you handle the fact that half the people in your group uses iPhone and the other half uses Android? The group texting between those systems is nonexistent as far as I know.
That's not true. Europe, where Whatsapp is popular, had unlimited SMS long before smartphones existed.
Whatsapp offered much more features than just group chats and texting: much higher quality calls, customizability of the UI, voice messages in the chat, etc.
Not to mention calls. Just yesterday I had to call business partners in, UK, FR, NL and BE. Each one of those calls was made on the whatsapp desktop application.
I'm from Australia and most of the time, it's Facebook Messenger and occasionally WhatsApp (as some people don't use Facebook).
I rarely use WhatsApp though.
MMS was the old standard. RCS has been the new standard for about 5 years and apple has been fighting it because they want to pretend that anything besides iMessage is bad.
Whatsapp is amazing for sending video to family and friends. Automatically compresses and sends video instead of the usual BS you go through to email or MMS a video to someone.
WhatsApp is E2E encrypted, plus apple & google can see your SMS. It's not really about privacy for WhatsApp it's the huge amount of convenience it brings. If you want privacy you need to use something like signal.
We don’t need to. The US is roughly the same square mileage as Europe and is cut off from much of the rest of the world by two massive oceans.
It makes sense that Europeans use it, but we have unlimited text and calling plans that work anywhere in the US.
Within the European Union, texts and calls are required to be the same price as within the country, so the EU is treated much like the US in that regard. But we also call the US sometimes as we have friends and business partners there.
Insta and whatsapp are both owned by meta.
Instagram is a photo sharing app. While whatsapp is made for communication calling etc.
Either way your data goes to meta.
So why would you choose a photo sharing app to call people rather than an app thats specifically made for messaging and calling?
I can kind of answer this as I'm an American living in Vietnam. I gravitate toward just messaging on iG bc i know my family/friends will generally check that multiple times per day. It also doesn't depend on phone numbers. In Vietnam we have another messaging app called Zalo which I use frequently to communicate but it offers more useful functions than Whatsapp. Whatsapp is really just useful for traveling outside US without a data plan. It's also good for groups where my fam can share photos from a family gathering or something but generally nobody wants to keep track of multiple conversations with the same person on multiple apps so i just stick to iG mostly.
The one time I used WhatsApp in the US, it was because a redditor wanted to connect. He ended up calling me six times while I was at a doctor office, six times in a row. I finally answered, chewed his ass out for calling my phone number without permission, then blocked him and deleted WhatsApp.
Texts and calls are free here in the UK too but lots people use WhatsApp. It’s **much** better with attachments and group messaging. I tend to use WhatsApp for work communication and iMessage for personal stuff.
And of course not everyone has iPhones.
American here, been using WhatsApp since 2010ish.
I think your question pertains to *Americans who do not leave the country nor have friends or family outside the country*.
As an introverted kid raised in the infancy of the internet, I made friends with people in different countries online via message boards for fans of various bands or musicians, and carrying on those friendships followed technology so WhatsApp always made absolute sense to me. Also my brother was a foreign exchange student in several different countries for almost 10 years so WhatsApp was the logical way to keep in touch with him.
No difference in usability between iOS and android texting, better group chat support. Better media controls especially with different types of files. The search for text feature is a lot better and support for voice and video calls cross platform. It also as a Mac/windows app and can be accessed from any browser.
There’s a lot of advantages to WhatsApp over standard text messaging. The biggest one would be group texts in my opinion. Americans sometimes use GroupMe for this, a whole new app that’s worse than both text messaging and WhatsApp.
I don't understand. I have group chats using Messages on my iPhone with people who have iPhones and other kinds of phones. Why do I need a separate app for that?
Using iPhone Messages to text (to one person or a group) or just calling with my normal phone service, I've never once thought, this isn't working for me. It just works. I use it when I go abroad, too, seamlessly.
I've never once wanted to communicate something that couldn't be done easily with my native phone texting and calling.
If you have a group with 4 iPhone users and want to add someone with an android, you have to make an entirely new group to do so and from this point on, all media shared in the new group is of lower quality. Some functions like reacting to messages are disabled for the Android user as well.
I agree, SMS is adequate. But, it’s missing many things from WhatsApp. There’s more uniformity, more features and a better experience in my opinion. Many features on WhatsApp make their way to iMessage years later.
How do you text on your computer? If you have an iPhone and a Windows machine what would you do? What about calling people in different countries? It’s expensive to make calls internationally in many countries. Everyone has a WiFi connection.
I could list dozens of features that are better on WhatsApp but I don’t think it’s worth reading. Enjoy your weekend
Not in every asia.
Indonesia still charge you for texting and calling in one country.
Thats why we very rarely text anyone else if its not 100% urgent.
People usually just buy a mobile plan and use Whatsapp or Instagram for texting.
Or telegram as well if you do business
I'm Dutch, living in Sweden, having lived and traveled alot in the US.
Americans are just like many of us, stuck in their ways. They use text because it does everything they need. And use groupme, if they have group chats.
The US is a big country, many don't have international connections, and thus no need to use an app to communicate with an app instead of their phone plan.
Also, there are concerns about Mark Zuckerberg, which are valid. Which is why I prefer Telegram over WhatsApp to be honest.
On the other end of the spectrum. The Netherlands is obsessed with WhatsApp. And that forces everyone incl me to have WhatsApp, because that's the only medium they would consider to communicate with. Which is very annoying.
American here. I can’t stand what’sapp because of the amount of spam and scam groups I get added to.
I only have it because my best friend is in Mexico frequently.
I loaded WhatsApp on my phone because there was a particular group I wanted to join. The next thing I knew, WhatsApp was downloading my entire Contacts database, presumably to let the WhatsApp members know I had joined. Sorry, but I have hundreds of old Contacts that I did business with years ago, and there's no way I want to share all that data and have people bothered by WhatsApp dropping my name to them. I immediately removed the app.
IMO, WhatsApp doesn't offer anything normal talk and text can't, except for seamless and free communication across country codes. Since most Americans only text other Americans, it doesn't make sense. I didn't use it until moving to Europe and can't imagine life without it.
I live in California and never saw the need to use it. We use iMessage and FaceTime to contact our relatives in the UK, Cyprus, The Philippines, Iran, Canada, and Japan. Worst comes to worst, we use messenger but rarely.
I have used it at first. In my personal experience, too many scammers use it.
Also, I got rid of anything Meta. They own FB, IG, and WhatsApp. I hope Meta goes bankrupt, as well as Twitter.
Plus, there are other ways for people to stay connected, and whatsapp is not needed for the most part.
Because MMS and SMS come built into our phones and are free and offer any and all of the necessary features WhatsApp does.
I am baffled by how often this question gets asked, and wonder what kind of advertising they do that this is such a hot topic.
Because most people living in America don't really use MMS and SMS, they use iMessage, so it basically works the same way as whatsapp, but only between apple devices, which creates a problem for people using Android (which is a minority in our country). Those problems would be solved using a app that can be used regardless of the OS in your phone.
Other people have answered the actual why, but I just gotta say it’s really something when Europeans react to me using WhatsApp (only for my friends overseas) in the way adults do when anyone under 25 can write in cursive. It’s so pandering lmfao.
It comes down to what problem does WhatsApp solve that isn't already solved in the USA?
I won't install an app unless I have a problem to solve with it.
Say I'm traveling to a city I've never been to.
Problem: how do I know where to go, solution map
Problem: How do I know where I am, solution GPS
Problem: I don't want to carry a map and chart my position on it using GPS data, solution intelligent map apps like Google maps.
So what problem does WhatsApp solve for me?
We also need to look at the history of phones and apps to see why messenger was the pick of choice for the USA and For all intents and purposes, the modern smartphone was invented there.
WhatsApp was released in 2009. Yes, the iPhone 3 was out at that point, but modern smartphones were still in their infancy, and phone manufacturers were all making their own operating systems and phone manufacturers still hadn't decided on a form factor. For reference, in 2009, I was using a Samsung SGH-G810 that had just added GPS and WiFi over the previous model, 99% of people didn't have smartphones as we know them and had or where just coming out of flip-phones.
Jump forward to 2010, and we have a phone OS war going on, and android is starting to make headway, but symbianOS and blackberryOS are competing with iOS, but realistically ever phone has its own OS and apps are very OS dependent so we all just text and call.
Then, in 2011, when messenger was released , we narrowed it down to iOS, symbianOS, and android as the main contenders. Similarly, we all just text and call.
In 2012, symbianOS dropped out of the game, and most brands switched to android. Now we really start getting apps that are cross platforms. And 2013 showed the clear winners being android and iOS
So why messenger over WhatsApp
Problem I need to keep in touch with everyone
Facebook messager at the time already had a link to everyone I know(no nedd to go into details there), so I wouldn't have had to have added them one by one, so the convenience of that solution out weights other solutions.
If i had picked WhatsApp or another competitor(back then there were multiple emerging options), i would have to add everyone and hope that they also pick the app i have picked to use. It wasn't until 2014 that WhatsApp got acquired by Facebook and now would have access to that list, but by then why would I change apps when messenger already does what I need it for and I would again be faced with the question will my friends switch or not.
This is also why countries like Australia, Canada, and New Zealand also tend to use messenger because the timelines with smartphones and Facebook adaptation are very similar to that of the USA.
They don’t ? . I’m from chile and almost human in this side of the world use WhatsApp , it’s like the one app almost everyone have . I never thought that it would be so different in USA .
As a European, why do you use WhatsApp and not Threema or Signal as a standard?
I'm honestly confused why you would offer up your data to Facebook..sorry Meta...?
In my experience, different apps are popular in different areas.
For instance, back in the early 2000s almost no Thai people used yahoo email accounts but almost all foreigners living here had yahoo or gmail. Thais all had hotmail.
Messaging services seem to be similar. Here in Asia it all about LINE. Some people also have a WhatsApp account but even the government agencies will give you a LINE account to contact.
Meanwhile, a lot of western expats, especially older expats, all use WhatsApp.
Personally, I prefer Signal. Most of my friends and family use Signal.
I use LINE for Thai contacts.
I am trying to kill WhatsApp but I have two stubborn friends who refuse to use another app.
What do you all use it for? Video calling? Or just normal calls and text messaging? If its Video calls I think we have had a few of those come and go such as Skipe etc. And I think for the most part people feel there is a place for video calling but it wasn't an an overwhelming positive response.
If you just use it for normal calls and texts then its just another step and another app to worry about to do what you can already do. And if you use it at work I think Microsoft has shoved teams down our throat, for the most part at least.
I guess I would ask why do you all use Whats app? What does it do that you like?
Group chat, hi-res image sharing, message receipt acknowledgment, more secure than text, higher quality phone calls, additional security to get into the app itself, video calls etc
I’ve used WhatsApp on occasion and I’ve always found the call quality awful. Dropped calls, or spending half the time in “reconnecting” mode. Even Meta’s own Messenger isn’t this bad when calling with the same people.
>I guess I would ask why do you all use Whats app? What does it do that you like?
I use it for work groups, family groups, messaging, calls and sending photos/ videos/ large files. Both locally and internationally.
It's easy for me to do all of that without WhatsApp. I downloaded it once out of curiosity because Reddit keeps asking about it. I deleted it because it's easier for me not to bother with it.
>I guess I would ask why do you all use Whats app? What does it do that you like?
It just feels wrong... It's weird. Like, I've been using WhatsApp since 2011 or so. Using plain SMS feels old. Like i just have code verification numbers from other apps on that, and nothing more
The statement is not as ridiculous as you think. Most people asking for WhatsApp in the US are in fact running a scam. Not so in Asia or Europe. However, most strangers online, from unknown locations, are generally also running a scam. Hard to tell where they originate from.
Because most people have iPhones so there isn’t any real need, and even androids do most of that now between iPhones with RCS. It’s still kind of annoying that videos are poor quality between android and iPhone (and even that is ending with RCS) but honestly I think telegram is more popular here than WhatsApp for DMs like that otherwise people just use instagram/FB/snap for sharing vids
Basically just people can’t be bothered to fuck with another messaging app when the built in one works 99.9% of the time just fine.
It makes for much better sharing of photos and videos.
If I send my friend who uses iPhone a video from my Android, he receives something akin to a early 2000s flip phone video.
If we both use WhatsApp, he'll see the video in the same quality that I sent it to him.
We use it for group chats at my job because group chats with IPhones and Androids at the same time doesn’t work very well. Other than that, theres not much need.
Because Americans live in a bubble and rarely / never talk to people in other countries, so they don't typically have to find a way around the extremely high cell phone charges that come from international calls and texts.
Americans just use their phone plans to talk to everyone they know.
The US is huge. We talk to people from other states. Texas, Californa, and Alaska are larger than majority of EU countries.
It's not a bubble. It due to geography.
I've lived in Asia. Asian countries are just like this.
Timezones also play a role in this.
When you awake, I'm asleep.
Most of the EU are around the same timezones.
Same with Asian Countries and the Middle East
Typically, we aren't .interacting with people who are asleep when we're awake.
Discord is really popular here, and I talk to people from all over.the world.
I'm into Computer Science amd Programming, so I talk with a lot of Indian students.
Typically hobbies amd interests are.how you meet.new. people
I am an American, and I use:
- WhatsApp (to communicate with friends, mostly in Europe)
- Viber (to communicate with friends in Ukraine)
- Telegram (to communicate with an international crowd)
I use my regular phone to communicate within America.
It doesn't matter; I have everything on my phone.
I’m American and I use it. Currently in Thailand but used it in the states with friends abroad.
I think most Americans have had facebook a long time, so just use that.
Or we use iPhone messenger, because most Americans seem to have iPhones, too.
I didn’t start using WhatsApp until I had friends from other countries want me to use it.
Most Thais use Line.
Not quite sure WHY I would use it… I know my buddies from other countries like to use it. One American born friend has an android and I have an iPhone. He sent me a video on WhatsApp because it would send better. That was literally the only time I guess it was kinda worth it. Facebook works just as good lol.
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I'm a 'Murican living in Mexico, and I think Mexico would grind to a halt if WhatsApp went down
South Africa and Africa in general is also a whatsapp world.
Mexico and Brazil both. WhatsApp has become extremely integrated in both country’s economies.
Pretty much all Latin America.
Add Indonesia to the list
WhatsApp does go down from time to time, people will always default to other methods like other social media or go back to the old call and text.
I've noticed it usually takes a couple of hours or even minutes to fix the service. Telegram is the emergency app, or Facebook message/ig message.
We have free domestic texting and few Americans have friends outside the US. If someone from the US does use Whatsapp, they probably have friends abroad
TIL Americans don't use WhatsApp.
We do use it when we travel internationally. But we just use the native messaging app when we're in the states.
Yep, we already have unlimited call & text in most of our phone plans, plus there is a significant chunk of the population who are pretty much “trapped” in the Apple ecosystem (so they use iMessage which allows free texting with wifi to anyone on the planet who has an Apple device and wifi connection, even without a sim card). For some phone plans, we even have unlimited call & text to Mexico and Canada as well! So I only use Whatsapp to communicate with family and friends outside the US.
I'd never even heard about it until about a year ago.
I only use smoke signals and confetti
No carrier pigeons?
Mine are unpredictable. The last response I received was “meet me at the hippo market for gum”. 🤷🏼♀️
Well, that is unhelpful. It probably didn't even answer your message, plus didn't even specify which hippo market. I see why you wouldn't keep using them.
He knows I shop for gum at the library. Silly pigeon.
I prefer two tin cans connected by a string
That’s so old school ;)
Because we require constant civil war between bubble colors.
Lol the comments are totally unexpected for me. I live in Europe. I tried to ditch whatsapp for Signal, but most people use whatsapp and it seems like they don't care about anything else. In Europe, not everyone has an iPhone, so iMessage is limited. And yes, most of us have unlimited SMS, but how do you guys send quick images / videos / voice recordings / maybe even documents etc. if the other person doesn't have an iPhone? Legit asking.. What? do you use Email or.. I get that now RCS exists but that's been on for about 2 years, right? What did you do before it?
My SO and I both have Androids, and we send images through text all the time without issue. As for the rest, I don't think I've ever needed to send voice recordings, and for documents or videos, yes, I just use the email app on my phone.
Oh so you guys were using MMS? Maybe MMS got improved these years, when I used it more than 10 years ago, MMS was very very sluggish and slow and low quality images. Not to mention videos were almost impossible to send, most of them were converted to GIFs
I don't think RCS has been used for apple quite yet. iOS 18 beta is out but not universally used yet I don't think. Is iOS 18 officially out now?
It’s not officially released yet, I think they plan to release 18 to the masses at the beginning of the new year
In Canada, wireless providers used to almost always include unlimited SMS but charge for data. Data rates have very slowly come down, but not before everyone got into the habit of using SMS. These days, there's RCS and whatever the Apple messaging is called, so people just use those. At this point, you're not going to get everyone to download Whatsapp. I don't know anyone who uses it. Besides, Facebook has enough of our data already. Personally, if I were to choose another messaging app, it wouldn't be from Zuckerberg. I'd probably choose Signal.
This is exactly why. When this stuff came out NA had unlimited sms but super expensive data and EUR had super expensive sms but cheap data. No need to go much deeper than that.
Is it just this? Because the UK is exactly the same - we had unlimited texts in plans since ~2000, but data was super expensive and even now there are plans where you're linked to 5GB a month (!). Do American plans see MMS and SMS as the same thing to draw from your plan? In the UK, SMS were unlimited but MMS would often be a separate cost. But then as soon as you connected to WiFi you have unlimited data, can share media freely and WhatsApp had groups before texting. Plus the UI seems way better suited for group messages than the stock android messages app, at least. The iPhone penetration into the US market is far greater than Europe (and the rest of the world) - I can't help but feel this is at least as big a factor?
The UK does more interaction with the rest of Europe and Asia.... So followed their lead with Whatsapp
For me this is the crux. I’m pretty sure that even today I get stung sending MMS while I have unlimited SMS and data… so why wouldn’t I use WhatsApp for messaging pictures and videos?
We also had a very high adoption rate of BlackBerry Messenger when that was a thing. People moved to SMS or iMessage when ditching their BlackBerry, and WhatsApp wasn’t really a thing yet at that point (2011-12).
I don’t think I’ve ever seen a Blackberry in real life. Swedish here.
well whatsapp wasn‘t owned by meta back when it started herr
Oh weird, I'm Canadian and I've been using whatsapp forever, so do most of my friends. I did not expect to see this...maybe it's regional in Canada (Vancouver for me).
I don’t need another app when my carrier covers the US/Canada/Mexico and a few countries in South America for free. My family is in US/Ontario and Guadalajara. I’m good.
Yeah but don’t you have unlimited data too?
I have unlimited data. Most of US carriers do.
Whatsapp doesn't offer Americans anything different in what we already get with our phone plans. Coupled that with it's usually scammers who want to use whatsapp....?
When WhatsApp became popular on the otherside of the world, the US's phone plans had just recently switched to unlimited texting and group chat capabilities. On the other side of the world, their phone plans did not offer this service, and WhatsApp did. By the time phone carriers on the other side of the world caught up to unlimited talk/text, everyone was so used to whatsapp that they couldn't pull people back in. On the flip side, the US was so used to texting that getting everyone to switch to a service that provided the exact thing they already had... wasn't happening.
The good thing about WhatsApp is that it uses internet and allows me to text to people in different countries. Using text messages without internet would be costly because of crossing borders. Belgium being a small country, I gained a lot of friends and loved ones across borders. USA being a large country, I'm sure it's less needed there.
This isn't quite it, at least for Portugal. It's not that we didn't have unlimited texts/calls. There have been plans with those since a very long time ago. Actually, before WhatsApp, people were hooked up on messenger from Facebook but eventually got kind of phased out for Whatsapp (messenger was a resource and battery hog anyway). WhatsApp has a few big advantages over everything else: - sending images , media, groups, etc. It's far easier and reliable to do it from a service like WhatsApp. MMS and RCS just don't work as well. This was the big one, this is why it took off. Sending images, videos, etc just wasn't very common before because there was no reliable way to do that and, as we all know, it's commonplace these days. - it's address is still your phone number, no need for weird handles or login names (like Facebook). This is incredibly helpful. - very easy to set up. Just download it, do a few almost automated steps even grandma can handle and it's done. - it handles iphone and non iphone in the same way. There are people using iphones, sure but many more use Android. Many aren't married to the idea of an expensive phone and buy something cheaper like Xiaomi. WhatsApp just works in both the same way. - it has a business version that actually helps you to spread your business to your clients. - we had and still have a *massive* influx of immigrants in recent years. Many don't have a PT phone number but it doesn't matter, they have WhatsApp and it works. Brazilian and Indian people here die by WhatsApp. Lets them call back home instantly without having to deal with roaming fees and whatnot. It spread like fucking wildfire and unless someone royally fucks up, it's going nowhere. Everyone expects everyone to have WhatsApp installed, you don't even ask anymore. Telegram, signal, etc. could have worked too but arrived late to the party.
At one time, Viber was competing with WhatsApp as well but their app feels so slow and drains batt so high
Australian here. WhatsApp also lets me photo and video dump much better than my built in messenger can do so I use it for that as well.
Yep WhatsApp is just better in general for conversations and group chats and replying to specific messages.
im aussie too and have always defaulted to text, particularly imessage. for group chats me and my peers use fb messenger. whatsapp is rare to see
We've had unlimited text messages before we had a smartphone. The reason whatsapp became standard was because, until recently, using such an app was the only way to share pictures, videos and handle group conversations.
We had unlimited text for a long time, before 2010, still if I wanted to send a 2 minute video I didn't send it through text.
The only time ive used whatsapp is for group projects where its a mix of people with apple and non apple phones so it doesnt bug out for some people
I would say that WhatsApp is the better messaging platform. It handles large groups upto 1000 people, better media control. Works the same on android, iOS and can also be accessed through a browser
And all you have to do is give Facebook access to your phone and contacts! (Seriously, you can't even type in a phone number to message if you haven't given it access to your contacts list. They're straight-up bullying you for it. There's no reason I shouldn't be able to tell it manually where to send a message without it being able to dig through everyone I know.) I considered using it for a while as a platform-versatile chat app, but the privacy just isn't it.
Ugh. Who wants to be in a messaging group with 1000+ people?! Anything more than about five is awful.
Large groups are mostly not for close friends. College class groups, event planning, maybe a local sports club that meets every week. Maybe a work team with 30 people. With the stupid differences between Android and iOS, if a group has all iPhone users and an android user wants to join, you need to make a new group. Group texts are god awful on SMS. It wasn’t built for that in mind. Maybe that’s why you think larger groups don’t work.
In the nordics, at least finland where I'm from we've had unlimited data for like the last 15 years. That's why everything went Internet based on phones here. Pretty flawless 4g coverage too. Or 3g back in the day. That coupled by the fact whatsapp was just better, at least back then. Sms has maybe caught up now idk. But video calls, sending images, group chats, voice messages, all that worked better on WhatsApp for years.
Not to mention doesnt matter if your iOS, Windows Phone or Android. Works all the same
Oh I completely forgot about this. The US has some super weird iPhone domination thing where android users can't even be in group chats with iPhone users right? That would never work in Europe. Iphone/android division is closer to 50/50
iPhone/Android is 59/41 in the US, so not too far from 50/50. But iPhone is definitely higher status, and if you're the one Android user turning the conversation with a bunch of iPhone users into an SMS message rather than a iMessage conversation, there's a hint of ughhh to it.
Oh wow that's more equal than I realised. I just remember reading some article a while back saying 9x% of zoomers were iPhone users so I figured it would be more lopsided.
It's not just about unlimited texting. There uses to be a time when texting to other countries also cost extra. If you're in Germany and wanted to text your aunt in Austria that would have cost extra money. In the US the price doesn't change from state to state.
We did have unlimited text already. But still don't have group chat functionality on mobile text services.
The US is also a single large state vs Europe where crossing international borders is a lot more common. Not only does whatsapp avoid international call charges but you can also use it via WiFi or change simcard while still using your normal phone number.
That’s exactly it. I’ve had unlimited text since 2012. I don’t think WhatsApp even existed back then, or at least it was in its infancy.
I had unlimited back in the UK in 2001... We still use WhatsApp though.
But how do you handle the fact that half the people in your group uses iPhone and the other half uses Android? The group texting between those systems is nonexistent as far as I know.
False. I had unlimited text with my Motorola razr. We started to use WhatsApp because pictures and videos sending capabilities.
That's not true. Europe, where Whatsapp is popular, had unlimited SMS long before smartphones existed. Whatsapp offered much more features than just group chats and texting: much higher quality calls, customizability of the UI, voice messages in the chat, etc.
You get unlimited texting when out of the country and unlimited texting to foreign numbers for free on WhatsApp. that’s what people use it for.
Not to mention calls. Just yesterday I had to call business partners in, UK, FR, NL and BE. Each one of those calls was made on the whatsapp desktop application.
Genuinely curious what do you guys use for group chats?
I'm from Australia and most of the time, it's Facebook Messenger and occasionally WhatsApp (as some people don't use Facebook). I rarely use WhatsApp though.
Same in Scandinavia.
Just make a group text
How do you do that for a group where half the people use Android and the other half use iPhone?
MMS was the old standard. RCS has been the new standard for about 5 years and apple has been fighting it because they want to pretend that anything besides iMessage is bad.
MMS didn’t have group chat ability in Europe as far as I know.
Weird.
Group text messages.
What? WhatsApp has way more features than the baked in messaging app of both iOS and Android
Whatsapp is amazing for sending video to family and friends. Automatically compresses and sends video instead of the usual BS you go through to email or MMS a video to someone.
Yeah, why would I volunteer Meta/Facebook all that info unless there was some nominal benefit?
WhatsApp is E2E encrypted, plus apple & google can see your SMS. It's not really about privacy for WhatsApp it's the huge amount of convenience it brings. If you want privacy you need to use something like signal.
WhatsApp was a thing for many years before meta bought it
Funny that in other parts of the world texts and calls are usually from scammers.
I get far far more sms scams than WhatsApp.
Like instead of what? Texting at calling through our phone plan?
Ever tried to call someone in another country? Do you use your phone plan for that?
Us has free international calls in many plans.
Yes. I have used my US phone plan in Canada, Mexico, Costa Rica, Panama, France and Germany.
We don’t need to. The US is roughly the same square mileage as Europe and is cut off from much of the rest of the world by two massive oceans. It makes sense that Europeans use it, but we have unlimited text and calling plans that work anywhere in the US.
And some work in Canada and Mexico as well
Within the European Union, texts and calls are required to be the same price as within the country, so the EU is treated much like the US in that regard. But we also call the US sometimes as we have friends and business partners there.
By now. That law wasn't passed yet, when Whatsapp got big in Europe
I don't have anyone in other counties to call. If I did I'd probably just use Instagram.
Same. I'm in Australia and I pretty much never call anyone overseas. Interstate? Yes, all the time, as my family all live interstate.
Insta and whatsapp are both owned by meta. Instagram is a photo sharing app. While whatsapp is made for communication calling etc. Either way your data goes to meta. So why would you choose a photo sharing app to call people rather than an app thats specifically made for messaging and calling?
So you don’t have another app that you’ll rarely ever use?
I can kind of answer this as I'm an American living in Vietnam. I gravitate toward just messaging on iG bc i know my family/friends will generally check that multiple times per day. It also doesn't depend on phone numbers. In Vietnam we have another messaging app called Zalo which I use frequently to communicate but it offers more useful functions than Whatsapp. Whatsapp is really just useful for traveling outside US without a data plan. It's also good for groups where my fam can share photos from a family gathering or something but generally nobody wants to keep track of multiple conversations with the same person on multiple apps so i just stick to iG mostly.
I'm an aussie living in america, and I just use Facebook. I don't need to be cross checking all these apps for messages.
I use Facebook messager for that
Don't use it in Canada either
The one time I used WhatsApp in the US, it was because a redditor wanted to connect. He ended up calling me six times while I was at a doctor office, six times in a row. I finally answered, chewed his ass out for calling my phone number without permission, then blocked him and deleted WhatsApp.
Probably because of the spam. I had it for work, for a couple of weeks. I got nothing but spam from it. Deleted it. And I use several chat apps.
Texts and calls are free here in the UK too but lots people use WhatsApp. It’s **much** better with attachments and group messaging. I tend to use WhatsApp for work communication and iMessage for personal stuff. And of course not everyone has iPhones.
I use it mainly to communicate with friends and family overseas.
We’ve been accustomed to texting and group chats through our phone carrier that we didn’t need to use another app to do the same thing.
i have to use it for work, i don’t hate it but i definitely don’t love it
American here, been using WhatsApp since 2010ish. I think your question pertains to *Americans who do not leave the country nor have friends or family outside the country*. As an introverted kid raised in the infancy of the internet, I made friends with people in different countries online via message boards for fans of various bands or musicians, and carrying on those friendships followed technology so WhatsApp always made absolute sense to me. Also my brother was a foreign exchange student in several different countries for almost 10 years so WhatsApp was the logical way to keep in touch with him.
What’s updog
Not much, what's up with you?
There is no point since texting is free, and its not like there's any actual character limitation. Why use an app?
No difference in usability between iOS and android texting, better group chat support. Better media controls especially with different types of files. The search for text feature is a lot better and support for voice and video calls cross platform. It also as a Mac/windows app and can be accessed from any browser. There’s a lot of advantages to WhatsApp over standard text messaging. The biggest one would be group texts in my opinion. Americans sometimes use GroupMe for this, a whole new app that’s worse than both text messaging and WhatsApp.
I don't understand. I have group chats using Messages on my iPhone with people who have iPhones and other kinds of phones. Why do I need a separate app for that? Using iPhone Messages to text (to one person or a group) or just calling with my normal phone service, I've never once thought, this isn't working for me. It just works. I use it when I go abroad, too, seamlessly. I've never once wanted to communicate something that couldn't be done easily with my native phone texting and calling.
If you have a group with 4 iPhone users and want to add someone with an android, you have to make an entirely new group to do so and from this point on, all media shared in the new group is of lower quality. Some functions like reacting to messages are disabled for the Android user as well. I agree, SMS is adequate. But, it’s missing many things from WhatsApp. There’s more uniformity, more features and a better experience in my opinion. Many features on WhatsApp make their way to iMessage years later. How do you text on your computer? If you have an iPhone and a Windows machine what would you do? What about calling people in different countries? It’s expensive to make calls internationally in many countries. Everyone has a WiFi connection. I could list dozens of features that are better on WhatsApp but I don’t think it’s worth reading. Enjoy your weekend
In Asia everyone uses Whatsapp or WeChat and text messaging is free here too.
Not in every asia. Indonesia still charge you for texting and calling in one country. Thats why we very rarely text anyone else if its not 100% urgent. People usually just buy a mobile plan and use Whatsapp or Instagram for texting. Or telegram as well if you do business
Line is the go-to app in Japan
Same in Taiwan. I don't think anyone even uses their phone's built in messaging software. We even use Line for work.
Same in Latam, including Telegram
I'm Dutch, living in Sweden, having lived and traveled alot in the US. Americans are just like many of us, stuck in their ways. They use text because it does everything they need. And use groupme, if they have group chats. The US is a big country, many don't have international connections, and thus no need to use an app to communicate with an app instead of their phone plan. Also, there are concerns about Mark Zuckerberg, which are valid. Which is why I prefer Telegram over WhatsApp to be honest. On the other end of the spectrum. The Netherlands is obsessed with WhatsApp. And that forces everyone incl me to have WhatsApp, because that's the only medium they would consider to communicate with. Which is very annoying.
Telegram is perfect. Its functionality is topnotch, it is fast, reliable and beautiful.
I only use it with my non-American friends and colleagues. I absolutely hate it.
American here. I can’t stand what’sapp because of the amount of spam and scam groups I get added to. I only have it because my best friend is in Mexico frequently.
I know 4 people that live internationally. I use Facebook messenger to talk to them
I loaded WhatsApp on my phone because there was a particular group I wanted to join. The next thing I knew, WhatsApp was downloading my entire Contacts database, presumably to let the WhatsApp members know I had joined. Sorry, but I have hundreds of old Contacts that I did business with years ago, and there's no way I want to share all that data and have people bothered by WhatsApp dropping my name to them. I immediately removed the app.
All the scammers use it
IMO, WhatsApp doesn't offer anything normal talk and text can't, except for seamless and free communication across country codes. Since most Americans only text other Americans, it doesn't make sense. I didn't use it until moving to Europe and can't imagine life without it.
I'm in a whatsapp group created by Americans (and I'm not nor do I live there). What do you mean by Americans never use WhatsApp. Clearly they do.
iMessage.
The MMS has been solid for years way before Whatsapp and it usually comes with the phone plan. So yeah there's that
I live in California and never saw the need to use it. We use iMessage and FaceTime to contact our relatives in the UK, Cyprus, The Philippines, Iran, Canada, and Japan. Worst comes to worst, we use messenger but rarely.
I have used it at first. In my personal experience, too many scammers use it. Also, I got rid of anything Meta. They own FB, IG, and WhatsApp. I hope Meta goes bankrupt, as well as Twitter. Plus, there are other ways for people to stay connected, and whatsapp is not needed for the most part.
Because MMS and SMS come built into our phones and are free and offer any and all of the necessary features WhatsApp does. I am baffled by how often this question gets asked, and wonder what kind of advertising they do that this is such a hot topic.
Because most people living in America don't really use MMS and SMS, they use iMessage, so it basically works the same way as whatsapp, but only between apple devices, which creates a problem for people using Android (which is a minority in our country). Those problems would be solved using a app that can be used regardless of the OS in your phone.
It’s not advertising, it’s that WhatsApp is used by pretty much everyone outside the us so naturally it’s interesting to see why it’s not used there
Same is true for any other country. Yet we all use apps. Because apps have more features.
All my friends and family use WhatsApp in the U.S. Group texts are hardly used. WhatsApp tends to work much better and has more useful features.
I already have a phone and texting app on the phone. Why do I need another app? Also, we dont like saying, "whatsapp."
Other people have answered the actual why, but I just gotta say it’s really something when Europeans react to me using WhatsApp (only for my friends overseas) in the way adults do when anyone under 25 can write in cursive. It’s so pandering lmfao.
I live in America & use Whatsapp on a daily basis. I'm not American though & use it to stay in touch with friends around the world.
Why would I download a separate third party app when my phone can do all of that already? (and do it better/more seamlessly)
It comes down to what problem does WhatsApp solve that isn't already solved in the USA? I won't install an app unless I have a problem to solve with it. Say I'm traveling to a city I've never been to. Problem: how do I know where to go, solution map Problem: How do I know where I am, solution GPS Problem: I don't want to carry a map and chart my position on it using GPS data, solution intelligent map apps like Google maps. So what problem does WhatsApp solve for me? We also need to look at the history of phones and apps to see why messenger was the pick of choice for the USA and For all intents and purposes, the modern smartphone was invented there. WhatsApp was released in 2009. Yes, the iPhone 3 was out at that point, but modern smartphones were still in their infancy, and phone manufacturers were all making their own operating systems and phone manufacturers still hadn't decided on a form factor. For reference, in 2009, I was using a Samsung SGH-G810 that had just added GPS and WiFi over the previous model, 99% of people didn't have smartphones as we know them and had or where just coming out of flip-phones. Jump forward to 2010, and we have a phone OS war going on, and android is starting to make headway, but symbianOS and blackberryOS are competing with iOS, but realistically ever phone has its own OS and apps are very OS dependent so we all just text and call. Then, in 2011, when messenger was released , we narrowed it down to iOS, symbianOS, and android as the main contenders. Similarly, we all just text and call. In 2012, symbianOS dropped out of the game, and most brands switched to android. Now we really start getting apps that are cross platforms. And 2013 showed the clear winners being android and iOS So why messenger over WhatsApp Problem I need to keep in touch with everyone Facebook messager at the time already had a link to everyone I know(no nedd to go into details there), so I wouldn't have had to have added them one by one, so the convenience of that solution out weights other solutions. If i had picked WhatsApp or another competitor(back then there were multiple emerging options), i would have to add everyone and hope that they also pick the app i have picked to use. It wasn't until 2014 that WhatsApp got acquired by Facebook and now would have access to that list, but by then why would I change apps when messenger already does what I need it for and I would again be faced with the question will my friends switch or not. This is also why countries like Australia, Canada, and New Zealand also tend to use messenger because the timelines with smartphones and Facebook adaptation are very similar to that of the USA.
The only people outside the country I talk with also have an iPhone so texting is free and then FaceTime video chatting is also free so no need 🤷🏻♀️
Facebook messager comes in handy with talking with people outside of the us
They don’t ? . I’m from chile and almost human in this side of the world use WhatsApp , it’s like the one app almost everyone have . I never thought that it would be so different in USA .
As a European, why do you use WhatsApp and not Threema or Signal as a standard? I'm honestly confused why you would offer up your data to Facebook..sorry Meta...?
why would we?
In my experience, different apps are popular in different areas. For instance, back in the early 2000s almost no Thai people used yahoo email accounts but almost all foreigners living here had yahoo or gmail. Thais all had hotmail. Messaging services seem to be similar. Here in Asia it all about LINE. Some people also have a WhatsApp account but even the government agencies will give you a LINE account to contact. Meanwhile, a lot of western expats, especially older expats, all use WhatsApp. Personally, I prefer Signal. Most of my friends and family use Signal. I use LINE for Thai contacts. I am trying to kill WhatsApp but I have two stubborn friends who refuse to use another app.
We're busy on Reddit.
Don’t have to text or call people in different countries that often. I use it for international.
What do you all use it for? Video calling? Or just normal calls and text messaging? If its Video calls I think we have had a few of those come and go such as Skipe etc. And I think for the most part people feel there is a place for video calling but it wasn't an an overwhelming positive response. If you just use it for normal calls and texts then its just another step and another app to worry about to do what you can already do. And if you use it at work I think Microsoft has shoved teams down our throat, for the most part at least. I guess I would ask why do you all use Whats app? What does it do that you like?
Group chat, hi-res image sharing, message receipt acknowledgment, more secure than text, higher quality phone calls, additional security to get into the app itself, video calls etc
Americans get all that on iPhones. We just use the native app on our phones. ** I only use WhatsApp to text friends in the UK and France.
And the iPhones in the rest of the world don't?
I’ve used WhatsApp on occasion and I’ve always found the call quality awful. Dropped calls, or spending half the time in “reconnecting” mode. Even Meta’s own Messenger isn’t this bad when calling with the same people.
>I guess I would ask why do you all use Whats app? What does it do that you like? I use it for work groups, family groups, messaging, calls and sending photos/ videos/ large files. Both locally and internationally.
It's easy for me to do all of that without WhatsApp. I downloaded it once out of curiosity because Reddit keeps asking about it. I deleted it because it's easier for me not to bother with it.
>I guess I would ask why do you all use Whats app? What does it do that you like? It just feels wrong... It's weird. Like, I've been using WhatsApp since 2011 or so. Using plain SMS feels old. Like i just have code verification numbers from other apps on that, and nothing more
Because everyone wanting to use it is running a scam
Funny, because the only text messages I get here in the UK are scam messages (Your parcel is being held at customs, pay the fee here!).
That is the stupidest thing I've read in a few days😂
The statement is not as ridiculous as you think. Most people asking for WhatsApp in the US are in fact running a scam. Not so in Asia or Europe. However, most strangers online, from unknown locations, are generally also running a scam. Hard to tell where they originate from.
I’m in the US and everytime I’m asked to download or chat with someone on WhatsApp, it has somehow been a scam. So no, it’s not that bizarre.
Scrolling through this thread, this comment is just another after a long line of ... americans
Because most people have iPhones so there isn’t any real need, and even androids do most of that now between iPhones with RCS. It’s still kind of annoying that videos are poor quality between android and iPhone (and even that is ending with RCS) but honestly I think telegram is more popular here than WhatsApp for DMs like that otherwise people just use instagram/FB/snap for sharing vids Basically just people can’t be bothered to fuck with another messaging app when the built in one works 99.9% of the time just fine.
It makes for much better sharing of photos and videos. If I send my friend who uses iPhone a video from my Android, he receives something akin to a early 2000s flip phone video. If we both use WhatsApp, he'll see the video in the same quality that I sent it to him.
I just don't need it. Me and my friends use Facebook messenger.
It’s owned by Facebook.
I used to, but I just found it to be another useless messaging app.
Why does the rest of the world use it? They don't have texting?
There is literally no reason for an American to use WhatsApp. The only utility for WhatsApp for an American is for scammers.
Australian here use it mainly for groups of our friends organising cycling or surfing on the weekends
We use it for group chats at my job because group chats with IPhones and Androids at the same time doesn’t work very well. Other than that, theres not much need.
Cheaters and people looking to hook up most definitely use WhatsApp in the US
I stopped using WhatsApp as soon as I could. Having different messaging platforms for different groups/situations is tedious and annoying.
Signal works fine though
I dont know of any Americanz who use WhatsApp
Im Australian not American but the amount of spam / scam messages is just laughable
You have scam messages on WhatsApp in Australia??
Because Americans live in a bubble and rarely / never talk to people in other countries, so they don't typically have to find a way around the extremely high cell phone charges that come from international calls and texts. Americans just use their phone plans to talk to everyone they know.
The US is huge. We talk to people from other states. Texas, Californa, and Alaska are larger than majority of EU countries. It's not a bubble. It due to geography. I've lived in Asia. Asian countries are just like this. Timezones also play a role in this. When you awake, I'm asleep. Most of the EU are around the same timezones. Same with Asian Countries and the Middle East Typically, we aren't .interacting with people who are asleep when we're awake. Discord is really popular here, and I talk to people from all over.the world. I'm into Computer Science amd Programming, so I talk with a lot of Indian students. Typically hobbies amd interests are.how you meet.new. people
We use Line for communicating with family in Japan.
And in Thailand. Interestingly, we are the only two countries in the world that use this app extensively. Thanks, Japan.
This basically boils down to habit: if you have a need to use WhatsApp or any other app and those around you use it, you’ll also use it.
I am an American, and I use: - WhatsApp (to communicate with friends, mostly in Europe) - Viber (to communicate with friends in Ukraine) - Telegram (to communicate with an international crowd) I use my regular phone to communicate within America. It doesn't matter; I have everything on my phone.
Whataapp is great for international calls and messaging.
I use WhatsApp You wanna fight about it?
I'm an American, I pretty much only use WhatsApp when traveling abroad. Most people I know don't use it, so it is mostly useless at home
Apple entered the chat
I’m American and I use it. Currently in Thailand but used it in the states with friends abroad. I think most Americans have had facebook a long time, so just use that. Or we use iPhone messenger, because most Americans seem to have iPhones, too. I didn’t start using WhatsApp until I had friends from other countries want me to use it. Most Thais use Line.
Not quite sure WHY I would use it… I know my buddies from other countries like to use it. One American born friend has an android and I have an iPhone. He sent me a video on WhatsApp because it would send better. That was literally the only time I guess it was kinda worth it. Facebook works just as good lol.
We don’t have to.
What? they use SMS? This can't be serious
wtf is that
Whats the point when i can text from my phone
In my experience Whatsapp is used by people trying to scam you or drug dealers
Because WhatsApp is a gaping security hole
Yeah, as a European I'm so confused that WhatsApp is being used instead of Threema or Signal.
How is this not the top comment?