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0 points01HNNWZ0MV43FF3mo ago0 comments

Network effect is killer. "better" would include having more than 3 billion people already on it.

Maybe the EU or China will crack down on it. A single company shouldn't decide who gets to talk to half the world. If that company is American they will not tolerate it for long.

Personally DeltaChat is my new favorite Thing but it falls afoul of Zooko's Triangle - A WhatsApp number or POTS number is short because it's centrally controlled and you have to pay for each one. DeltaChat has public keys, so I have 20 of them, and nobody can control who gets one, but they're incredibly long... the QR codes are nightmares.

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embedding-shape3mo ago

> Network effect is killer. "better" would include having more than 3 billion people already on it.

At one point people moved from something else to Whatsapp, and that happened before Whatsapp had 3 billion people on it. If it's good, early adopters will adopt it and want others to adopt it too, then it snowballs from there.

It has happened before, and as long as new regulation doesn't solidify Whatsapp/FB in their position, it can happen again :)

riffraff3mo ago

WhatsApp happened at a time when, in Europe, you paid for SMS.

WhatsApp allowed people to send SMS without paying, or rather, paying just once to buy the app, so it was instantly valuable if you just convinced your spouse or parents or a single friend to install it.

To overcome it now, you need a lot more effort (or rely on enshittification, which I'm sure will happen).

embedding-shape3mo ago

No, before Whatsapp, people were mostly using Facebook messages, at least where I lived at the time.

And no one was paying per SMS at the time we were using SMS for communication, almost everyone I know were on monthly plans that gave you N text messages and N minutes of calls for static sum each month.

The first people I saw who started using whatsapp, was people who were communicating across the border, because even if you had a monthly plan, those didn't include international messages. Eventually we all converged on whatsapp because that's what outside family and relatives used anyways.

vlovich1233mo ago

WhatsApp launched in January of 2009 compared with Facebook Chat which launched in 2008. WhatsApp saw drastically wider adoption among the general populace and paying for “N text messages per month” is precisely what people refer to as paying per message - WhatsApp had unlimited messaging.

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stavros3mo ago

The EU has already forced WhatsApp to be interoperable. Of course, Meta complied maliciously, making it a setting that you have to enable, but at least it's a start.

embedding-shape3mo ago

I guess the bean counters figured it'd be cheaper compared to ultimately paying the fine they get for maliciously following the rules. Hope the fine ends up large enough to make them wrong :)

j / k navigate · click thread line to collapse

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embedding-shape3mo ago

> Network effect is killer. "better" would include having more than 3 billion people already on it.

It has happened before, and as long as new regulation doesn't solidify Whatsapp/FB in their position, it can happen again :)

riffraff3mo ago

WhatsApp happened at a time when, in Europe, you paid for SMS.

To overcome it now, you need a lot more effort (or rely on enshittification, which I'm sure will happen).

embedding-shape3mo ago

No, before Whatsapp, people were mostly using Facebook messages, at least where I lived at the time.

vlovich1233mo ago

1 more reply

stavros3mo ago

The EU has already forced WhatsApp to be interoperable. Of course, Meta complied maliciously, making it a setting that you have to enable, but at least it's a start.

embedding-shape3mo ago

I guess the bean counters figured it'd be cheaper compared to ultimately paying the fine they get for maliciously following the rules. Hope the fine ends up large enough to make them wrong :)

j / k navigate · click thread line to collapse