I read about WhatsApp and how people can't part with Meta because of it, however no one on my continent uses it. Why is it so popular in the EU and other parts of the world?
this post was submitted on 26 Mar 2024
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Others have replied with the reasons, i.e. data vs SMS price. I would just like to comment on:
No one in your country uses it, people definitely use it on your continent. Latin America is almost 100% WhatsApp, SMS are seen as obsolete there, even if you meant North America Mexico uses WhatsApp. I think the only countries in the world that use SMS are the US and Canada, which coincidentally are the only countries I've visited where I had to worry about running out of data on my phone.
I'd be surprised if people avoid Internet-based messaging because they're worried about data usage. Text messages use a tiny amount such that they work well even on a throttled connection.
The fact that unlimited SMS became common early in the USA, and few people are messaging internationally probably explains it better.
I would add - US is a load of states but one country; EU is a load of countries. It costs more to text another country, and it used to cost more to use data in another country.
Then the EU said fuck that you greedy cunts and made it illegal to charge more for data while abroad
Also, huge portions of first gen Latinos in America use Whatsapp too - because it's what they're used to, to talk to family back home, etc. I worked with a immigration org for a bit and everything was Signal or Whatsapp.
Americans also expected me to leave a voice message instead of sending an SMS when I didn't reach them. That was quite a culture shock for me.