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?
Please don't post about US Politics. If you need to do this, try !politicaldiscussion@lemmy.world
1) Be nice and; have fun
Doxxing, trolling, sealioning, racism, and toxicity are not welcomed in AskLemmy. Remember what your mother said: if you can't say something nice, don't say anything at all. In addition, the site-wide Lemmy.world terms of service also apply here. Please familiarize yourself with them
2) All posts must end with a '?'
This is sort of like Jeopardy. Please phrase all post titles in the form of a proper question ending with ?
3) No spam
Please do not flood the community with nonsense. Actual suspected spammers will be banned on site. No astroturfing.
4) NSFW is okay, within reason
Just remember to tag posts with either a content warning or a [NSFW] tag. Overtly sexual posts are not allowed, please direct them to either !asklemmyafterdark@lemmy.world or !asklemmynsfw@lemmynsfw.com.
NSFW comments should be restricted to posts tagged [NSFW].
5) This is not a support community.
It is not a place for 'how do I?', type questions.
If you have any questions regarding the site itself or would like to report a community, please direct them to Lemmy.world Support or email info@lemmy.world. For other questions check our partnered communities list, or use the search function.
Reminder: The terms of service apply here too.
Logo design credit goes to: tubbadu
SMS used to be the standard way of messaging people on a cellphone. Since a European country is about the size of one US state, it's pretty common to have friends, family or other people you have to message in another European country. Many carriers still charge additional fees for sending SMS messages to other EU countries. So Europeans needed some way of messaging people in other countries for free. That's where WhatsApp came in, it's designed for phones and simpler to use than Email. In 2013, WhatsApp was bought by Facebook, which later became Meta. It's basically the same for other countries that rely on WhatsApp, they need to send messages to foreign countries frequently, which can become quite expensive when using SMS. Americans never needed WhatsApp, because they don't have to message people in foreign countries as often as Europeans, and they often have unlimited SMS included in their cell plans.
While it is historically true, carriers cannot charge foreign fees for EU members since some time now. They basically said to the carriers "now you stop being greedy fucks".
Since then the European Union is just one large country phone fees wise. Even non EU member Switzerland is included on the EU plan and Switzerland includes Europe as if it is national call/text.
But it was too late indeed, people were already on WhatsApp to avoid sms.
To the best of my knowledge Switzerland is not included. 0.70€/sms
Yo wtf, these prices are crazy
Welcome to abroad roaming where a minute of calling costs you an arm and a leg.
Don't even think doing roaming in a foreign land. You will be charged two arms.
Can confirm, when I crossed the border from Italy my existing deal was no longer valid so my connection just dropped.
Ah ok, mine have Switzerland and other non EU (but close) countries.
Yeah that was in 2018. But WhatsApp was already by far the most popular messenger by then.
This has been a thing since when?
I found an article stating 06.2017 as a start date for free EU roaming.
With that in mind since when did smartphones became the norm? About 2011/12?
WhatsApp is basically a full replacement of what iMessage does to some degree and what RCS aspires to be. Everyone cam use it, is free and even the older non-tech folks can use it.
Now try moving those older folks to use some other app. You can't even make them to use apps like Telegram or Signal or Threema.
I think they were just pointing out that the roaming fees are a thing of the past, because the previous comment sounded like that's still a thing.
Even with the unified roaming prices, to this day I don't have sms included, but I have 30gb of data.
They can and they do. roaming became free but international calls are still expensive (not as bad as it used to be but still) calling a different country cost me about 20 cents per minute, that's 1 euro for a 5 minute call. unless of course I physically cross the border.
Also in the US the plans had free unlimited sms early on and people just stick with it. They know a number will receive a text message they don't on now if they have Whatsapp.
You can't send someone a message unless they have WhatsApp.
Maybe this is true for some regions, but in general the reason was money. SMS costs money, Whatsapp intially had a low one time or annual fee that was way below what you used to pay for a few SMS, but you got better service than MMS for that fee. And now it's free and sustained by network effects.
This is the best answer.
Source: American, but I’ve spent the past 6 years living across Asia and Europe.
Okay your answer annoyed me because I don't see how the size of european countries really relates, whatsapp was popular because of group text functionality and messages being free I don't think it had anything to do with international communication, that said whatsapp and viber took off during the recession when emigration was rampant so there could be something there.
Anyway, I went to investigate and the average US state is larger than the average EU country by quite the margin 190,000 sqkm to 126,000 sqkm.