Because when Whatsapp was born, SMS were paid (and not cheaply). In my country, sending one SMS cost 0.19€ at the time and didn’t allow pics to be send. Meanwhile, with 10€ I could have 1-2GB of data that allowed for tens of thousands of messages to be sent while on mobile data and unlimited messages while I was on a wifi connection.
Why does most of the world use WhatsApp as their messaging app rather than RCS/SMS?
Submitted 6 hours ago by speedythefirst@lemmy.zip to [deleted]
Comments
AbsolutelyNotAVelociraptor@piefed.social 4 hours ago
ExLisper@lemmy.curiana.net 1 hour ago
WhatsApp was also an independent company and worked really well compared with other apps. I remember checking alternatives like… 5 years ago and no other app was able to do video calls reliably. Since then Signal caught up and works great now but everyone is already on WhatsApp. EU was working interoperability requirements. That’s pretty much the only way to escape WhatsApp now.
bamboo@lemmy.blahaj.zone 6 hours ago
Others are mentioning price per message, but also important to remember that in the 2000-2010s outside of the United States, when traveling from country to country, you usually had to get a local SIM card for a provider in that country, During your vacation, you’d have a new number for a month when no one could contact you over normal text messages which was a problem. WhatsApp became popular so you could keep chatting with friends abroad even if your phone’s SIM card changed during your vacation.
Since most people from the United States don’t travel outside the country, and vacation time is rather limited, this wasn’t a problem for them, but for the rest of the world, a solution was needed that removed the cell carrier from the equation.
mangobanana@discuss.online 2 hours ago
I hate WhatsApp for no other reason than it’s a Facebook product.
corsicanguppy@lemmy.ca 2 hours ago
I’ve had SMS messages read to me by a third party, not a cop. I’ve had transcripts of ‘private’ cell calls read back to me by a third party, not a cop.
I survived the entire lifetime of skype without having the same, and I guess I hope the same happens with whatsapp.
fyzzlefry@retrolemmy.com 3 hours ago
RCS is Google locked
scholar@lemmy.world 1 hour ago
It was never ‘Google locked’, its an open standard developed by the GSM Association that IOS has supported since 2024.
Steve@communick.news 6 hours ago
Wile texting in the US went free relatively early on, much of the rest of the world continued to charge for every text message. So data based instant messaging apps became very popular everywhere in the world that’s not the US.
jaygray91@piefed.zip 5 hours ago
Basically this. tl;dr: being free and being first exposure to mobile instant messenger.
in my south east Asian country, back then we did have bundle sms pricing, buy when the mobile internet infrastructure was getting big money from governments, WhatsApp came in at the right moment. advertising them being free (with a minimal $1 or something lifetime fee nobody bothered to pay for) and can do texting and sending images for free. compared to paying bundled prices for sms and MMS, it’s just a no-brainer.
remon@ani.social 1 hour ago
SMS costs money, no idea what RCS is. Other than that it’s probably just inertia. I prefer to use Signal but only about 30% of my whatsapp contacts have that.
stoy@lemmy.zip 4 hours ago
RCS is not yet working on my carrier here in Sweden.
And since most people are already using alternative messaging apps, no one really cares.
gezero@sopuli.xyz 6 hours ago
My guess, because of the network effect.
the_q@piefed.social 6 hours ago
Why not Signal?
Brkdncr@lemmy.world 5 hours ago
WhatsApp has been around for a few minutes more than Signal.
scrion@lemmy.world 5 hours ago
Not really, no. Signal was released more or less exactly a year later than WhatsApp (May 2010 vs May 2009), which, if you look at the 17 years since then, doesn’t really matter that much.
However, broad adoption rates in messaging apps are typically achieved by e. g. funny emoji sets vs. encryption, and the early versions of Signal were pretty barebone.
fyzzlefry@retrolemmy.com 3 hours ago
At least 5
rumschlumpel@feddit.org 6 hours ago
WhatsApp is free (or was it a one-time purchase?), SMS tends to cost money.
Dave@lemmy.nz 6 hours ago
This is my understanding. WhatsApp took off at a time and in places where SMS was expensive. Because WhatsApp used data, they could keep data usage low and allow people to message almost for free.
Kazel@lemmy.dbzer0.com 3 hours ago
They are st*pid and like to suck on the zuck
Reality@feddit.org 3 hours ago
- You can curse on the Internet. Don’t self censor.
- The world used WhatsApp before Facebook bought it and network effects hold people there.
- Most people around here had mobile plans with limited sms usage and were less likely to be iPhone users, so a chat across operating systems was a necessity. That meant WhatsApp was way cheaper and could do images and videos.
weimaraner_of_doom@piefed.social 4 hours ago
“It gives me the complexion of a Disney princess and lets me send weird pictures of my forhead or the ceiling to my friends.” –Teenagers gleefully giving Snapchat all their personal data
usualsuspect191@lemmy.ca 4 hours ago
It’s better for group texts and sharing pictures/memes across different hardware
macro_byte@programming.dev 6 hours ago
Bump
JeSuisUnHombre@lemmy.zip 5 hours ago
SMS uses cellular, WhatsApp uses internet. Internet connects you anywhere with one flat rate, cellular may charge extra per message or for international communication.
Signal is better, but everyone’s grandmother is already on WhatsApp and good luck getting them to switch
Pamasich@kbin.earth 48 minutes ago
I think that's why OP asked about RCS, which is also internet but built into SMS apps.
Semi_Hemi_Demigod@lemmy.world 4 hours ago
Back at the turn of the century text messages were exorbitantly priced
TheMadCodger@piefed.social 2 hours ago
I keep hoping with this anti-American Big Tech push that Europe and other places are doing they’ll get off Meta products. But I’m also not holding my breath.
qyron@sopuli.xyz 2 hours ago
I work at a company that I strongly suspect had a very serious security breach because of Whatsapp.
During the outage, we were back to SMS and direct phone calling only. After the system was restored, back to how everything was before, caution be damned, lessons not learned.
It’s not bad enough to have that invasive application as the default means of passing information around (messages, photos, video and even audio, of all things!) on work phones, office personel has it paired to their computers, where highly sensitive programs and data is stored.
Ugurcan@lemmy.world 1 hour ago
Signal always sounded too good to be true. I won’t be shocked to learn it’s an NSA front I promise.