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[-] Dudewitbow@lemmy.zip 25 points 8 months ago

vast majority of people use the default app their phone choice comes with.

historically eise, the reason EU uses whatsapp was that there was a time period early on where sms costed money, so people used whatsapp to circumvent that. the U.S didnt have that problem as sms was free for the majority of people in that time period.

[-] echo64@lemmy.world 23 points 8 months ago

This seems a bit revisionist. Everyone had an amount of smses per month that were free in their contract.

People switched to whatsapp because it was better than sms.

[-] Natanael@slrpnk.net 7 points 8 months ago

Not everybody, and not infinitely far back. There was definitely a period where there were no free texts included (although I do think that by the iPhone introduction many did have it, but still not all!)

[-] echo64@lemmy.world 1 points 8 months ago

its good to be clear that we are talking about a time period when people migrated to whatapp, and the reasoning for migrating to whatsapp. and how the 'text for free' thing wasn't a big motivator, (nor was it a new idea)

[-] lemmyvore@feddit.nl 6 points 8 months ago

And also because Whatsapp was available on every platform, from the dominant ones at the time (Nokia and Blackberry) to the newcomers (iOS, Android, even Windows Phone and more obscure ones like Samsung's whatever it was called).

[-] pewgar_seemsimandroid@lemmy.blahaj.zone 1 points 8 months ago* (last edited 8 months ago)

Samsung had bada os then worked with intel and the tizen foundation on tizen

[-] LWD@lemm.ee 6 points 8 months ago

And a lot of people had to pay per SMS/minute! At least, for the plans that didn't require a contract or a huge load of money up front. Remember Net10, where the gimmick was prepaying for $.10/minute, and text messages around $.05 apiece?

[-] Stupidmanager@lemmy.world 1 points 8 months ago

wasn’t it the long distance thing? charged for sending SMS outside of your network or something. I recall whatsapp was the way to text your parents from one country in to another, even in the EU.

I know for a fact my fam adopted almost a decade ago, so we can text from USA to EU to SA to Canada. Family all over and it’s free.

[-] WhiteHotaru@feddit.de 7 points 8 months ago

39 cents/SMS. I remember this time. This does not explain why it has to be that specific protocol, though.

[-] Dudewitbow@lemmy.zip 2 points 8 months ago* (last edited 8 months ago)

because people were already uaing sms when it was paid beforehand before smartphones were a thing. people just used to whatever the default was, especially since its not like everyone switched to a smart phone immediately after the iphone 3gs' relase. sms was the default method to talk to people who were still using "dumbphones"

[-] gregorum@lemm.ee 4 points 8 months ago

Also, at the time, WhatsApp was pretty much the only option. Nowadays, there are a lot of other options.

[-] Zak@lemmy.world 2 points 8 months ago

A part of it was that they put in the effort to support featurephones. People with smartphones always had other options.

[-] lemmyvore@feddit.nl 2 points 8 months ago

It was the other way around, the feature phones were funny at the time so not supporting them would have made no sense. And iPhones and Androids had just been launched at the time so there weren't actually lots of options for them.

[-] Zak@lemmy.world 1 points 8 months ago

WhatsApp was available for Blackberry, Symbian, and Nokia Series 40, and I've seen device support cited as an important part of its early success. It actually looks like Skype, AIM, and ICQ had pretty good support for various devices in the early 2010s too so I'm not sure that claim holds up.

this post was submitted on 16 Jan 2024
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