Why does everyone use what’s app?

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leftmysoulthere74@reddit

Ten people in a group, seven have iPhones, three have androids - group chats are easier in WhatsApp.

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Technical-Math-4777@reddit (OP)

We literally bullied a friend into getting an iPhone for this reason. My sister is still messing up family group chat.

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SomeHSomeE@reddit

Americans are so weird when it comes to phone

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etymoticears@reddit

It's not your sister it's Apple messing it up on purpose to empower bullies like you to get people to buy iPhones. Well done

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Indigo-Waterfall@reddit

If only there was an app that could be used on all phones… what could we call it? What’s up? No…no..what’s app?!

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Accomplished-Soup946@reddit

Why? Whatsapp works on android too lol

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SomeHSomeE@reddit

It's just what got adopted. No one uses SMS for anything other than OTP codes.

It was an early app that introduced features no others didn't provide including group messages, pics/videos, sharing Google maps pins, etc. It also had features like the 'blue ticks' for read messages. All of these were app based so no matter what phone system you were on it would work. Over time others have built similar features into SMS/MMS apps like iMessage but they are not cross platform like WhatsApp is so never really took off here.

You also need to remember that in UK iOS doesn't have a majority in the market - there are more android users. The US is pretty unique in being a country where iOS has the majority share of users.

I have always found it strange that Americans having a snobbish attitude towards Android (often being seen as cheap and poor). Android has more features than iOS and the flagship phones have better specs, more capabilities, and are often more expensive or similar price to iPhone so doesn't really make sense.

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Scatterheart61@reddit

I was at uni in 2011, and my friend was so excited to tell me about this amazing new app. You could have group chats, including people with both iphones and androids, you could send photos for free, you could send messages from wherever, even on holiday for free etc. It seemed amazing!

Soon more and more people started downloading it, and we had group chats for uni work, family chats, planning events etc. To be in the group chat you needed WhatsApp so those who didn't have it but wanted to join downloaded it.

And then obviously since everyone had WhatsApp it was easier to just send all your messages there rather than switching between WhatsApp and the messages app. They also rolled out new features like voice notes not long after, and we honestly had no reason to ever go back to normal messages.

Using something for so many years becomes ingrained, so even when/ if the regular messages app catches up and adds the same features, people don't switch back to using it. Especially younger people who may have only really ever used WhatsApp. Now many companies use it with employees, colleagues have group chats, kids schools use it to send parent info / class group chat, volunteer groups use it. Not sure about the younger generation - I know my teens use discord for a lot, but are also in the whatsapp family chats etc

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Willeth@reddit

WhatsApp was the first communication tool that allowed for group texts and rich media over WiFi and cellular data they got traction, and it did it before iMessage existed. It happened right when people still saw apps as novel, and then once other options were available,

I think also Blackberry Messenger was pretty big among teens over here at the time, but Blackberry was dying, and people were looking for something to replace it.

And of course messaging was free over your existing data. Other ways of messaging cost money to send each time.

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nathderbyshire@reddit

BlackBerry wasnt dying, they just died because they hung themselves not making smartphones in time and thinking their devices were god's gift lol. They actually thought touchscreens and large devices were a gimmick

There's a documentary or two about it, quite stupidly fascinating really

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your_swindon_lot@reddit

I had a blackberry at the time and actually delayed moving over to smartphones for quite some time. How can a phone not have a real keyboard I thought?

Anyway, once I moved over I realised I’d stayed with bb for too long and they were fast declining in the phone market.

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zephyrmox@reddit

MMS is absolute garbage.

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nathderbyshire@reddit

Because BBM didn't make smartphones in time

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ThatAd790@reddit

Genuinely no idea 😂 one day I stopped using the text feature and started using WhatsApp.

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Technical-Math-4777@reddit (OP)

😂 I love this answer

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Independent_Pace_579@reddit

I tried to resist it but everyone else was using it

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West_Yorkshire@reddit

How do I make a text conversation with multiple people in the group, where I can send images, video, files, and voice notes for no extra expense?

Ah that's right, you can't.

That's why I used WhatsApp :-)

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prustage@reddit

Its not just text messages,you can send pictures, music, documents, videos etc. You can also format your texts. and it doesnt matter what country you are communicating with, the process is international and seamless.

Some of this is possible with standard SMS but it depends on your carrier and your contract. With WhatsApp its there by default and its built in. Most importantly it works over WiFi as well as GSM which means, most of the time, its free.

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eeyorethechaotic@reddit

Many providers charge for sending MMS messages. All of them used to. WhatsApp is free over WiFi. So it just became the default.

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Competitive-Fact-820@reddit

This is exactly why I use it - my carrier still charges per MMS so I just use Whats App instead

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mousecatcher4@reddit

A lot of my SMS traffic is banking pin codes. Meta is a commercial advertising company that makes it's money from data scavenging and other sleeze - would not trust my banking to WhatsApp. Use the latter from sending pictures of my lunch.

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elegant_karlie@reddit

Yeah, phones have built-in texting, but WhatsApp just makes life easier. It’s free, works over Wi-Fi, doesn’t ruin photo/video quality like SMS does, and group chats are actually decent. Plus, if you ever change your phone or number, your chats move with you. It’s kinda just the default now for most people, even when we’re messaging someone who lives next door lol.

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Technical-Badger-Esq@reddit

I message my wife memes while we are in the same room.

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lovelyfishyfish@reddit

I'd an easier interface in terms of sending photos, videos and voice notes. Also group chats. On top of that regular phone signal is wayyy worse since they took down 3G, so it can actually be more reliable to comminute via Internet.

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Technical-Math-4777@reddit (OP)

Oh jeez, we’re over here getting fried with 5g. That makes sense though, the only reason I have it was exchanging long dog training videos that didn’t send well in other apps. The guy was from London and was very insistent that we move from Facebook messenger

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oynsy@reddit

5G is absolute dogshite in the UK

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Part-Time-Rockstar@reddit

I still prefer Messenger. It seems pointless to me that they’re separate. Neither require a Facebook account. It’s time that WhatsApp and Messenger merge.

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Technical-Math-4777@reddit (OP)

I will say this, I can send longer videos in WhatsApp and the shorter ones seem to maintain quality better

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Known-Watercress7296@reddit

Meta is God.

I use signal most of the time, but for ancients, younglings, colleagues and the technically inept Meta makes it simple to feed them all your info.

Remember back when people were leaving Facebook as it was invasive crapware, lol

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Federal-Addendum-223@reddit

Just easier to do it all in one app tbh.

Why fragment conversations across multiple things when you can do it all in the same app regardless of international or not.

I haven't texted normally in over a decade so I have no idea how it is with things like links, GIFs, images etc for sending memes over mms.

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fc_lausanne_sport@reddit

Phones have messaging. People probably simply prefer WhatsApp. It gives the same basic function of standard phone messaging plus easy use of groups (easier to arrange things, friend/family/work groups can communicate in one place) calling/images/video/sharing is smoothly incorporated into the chat e.g. shared images, GIFs, video clips are all immediately visible in the chat and can easily be found later for each chat. Video call and voice call accessible from the chat without needing to go elsewhere. Search function to search through chat history e.g. for specific words. Shared links display in a more user friendly way than they usually do in messaging, where they usually show as a basic pasted link, where WhatsApp would show e.g. a preview image etc. If people care, it's got more options to personalise. You have more control over notifications including can mute specific chats for specific time periods.

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le-quack@reddit

I'm assuming the OP is American. Data was (is?) Much cheaper than it was in the US in the 2010s this lead to a wider adoption of Internet based messaging apps in the UK as they had more features and were often cheaper than mms. WhatsApp just became the most prevalent app

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xsorr@reddit

Text is limited in character msging

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Larnak1@reddit

SMS is a lot less convenient and lacking features, and used to cost more. That time is gone, but the transition to WhatsApp already happened and it has been having a strong network effect ever since.

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GeneralSoup4633@reddit

SMS / MMS is a thing. Not sure it happened, but lots of people moved to WhatsApp. Might be because the divide between iOS / Android isn't as prevelent here, or that WhatsApp over WiFi doesn't really cost anything, not sure.

Other apps are in use as well, but WhatsApp seems to be the favourite.

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