While WhatsApp is not very much used in the US, in some other countries such as Brazil it is basically the primary form of "phone" communication. It is everyone's default text, voice and video message platform. People don't ask if you have WhatsApp there, they just assume it. You talk to your Bank/Investor manager using WhatsApp. You order pizza through WhatsApp. Customer Support for services is WhatsApp bots that send you to the correct places. If I don't have WhatsApp, I can't voice chat with my mom, she won't see her grandkids. If you have any sort of business, you need WhatsApp.
And yes, I do have Signal installed, and there are only 2 people who talk to me through it (one being my partner).
Phone carriers got too greedy charging for every single SMS message and phone call, WhatsApp took over when smartphones became popular.
But isn't it a timebomb waiting to blow up eventually? Like, Meta fucks something up with it and there is nothing you can do.
IIRC South Korea used to be fully depedent on a horrendous AcriveX applet running only in Internet Explorer for all their online services, yet they eventually managed to get rid of it. It should be possible here as well.
If WhatsApp does something really bad tomorrow, the population will probably migrate to Telegram very quickly, as it seems to be the 2nd most popular app for the category there.
There was a time where IRC was the most popular way to chat, and then MSN became IM default. Then people 'pinged' with BBOS. At one point, WhatsApp became the default, and just now Signal got popular, [1] thanks to Donald Trump.
And yes, I do have Signal installed, and there are only 2 people who talk to me through it (one being my partner).
Phone carriers got too greedy charging for every single SMS message and phone call, WhatsApp took over when smartphones became popular.