Really? This couldn’t be more wrong as most blanket statements are.
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WhatsApp Reaches 100 Million Monthly Users in the United States
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Yeah, but WhatsApp shares all your metadata. So Facebook gets who you talk to, when you talk to them, and how often you talk to them.
Why would you ever use a service that gives that information away to Facebook?
Friends in Europe always just contact me through email. That way there’s no new app or anything for them to install.
233 million is misleading. 100 million of them don't have smartphones.100 million? This is great news! As someone living in the USA, I really look forward to asking people IRL how many of their friends and family they've added on WhatsApp.
...and then they'll ask "uh.... WHAT app?" because there's 233 million people in the USA who aren't on it.
Nothing Apple is ever a standard. Apple is synonymous with niche not standard.
Probably not. Majority probably use iMessage or RCS.
Unless you are counting marketing texts, which are all short code SMS
Yes, apparently Apple users in the US.
Everyone I know has whatapp installed, but as a tertiary communications app. It's true I may send or receive one or two whatsapp messages per month, if that is counted as active...
My hunch is that many of those WhatsApp customers in the US are using it to keep in touch with family and friends abroad. The big downside of iMessage is, that it sometimes will send your messag as a SMS (very expensive). This can never happen with WhatsApp. And of course iMessage is Apple only. WA works the same, even if the other person switches the OS.
Messages between android and iPhone are currently all sms, unless using a third party app. All group texts are sms. 2factor is. In addition, rcs isn't enabled by default on a lot of android phones.
Everyone in the US and Canada uses SMS at least somewhat regularly, even if it's not their primary way of texting.
You can use WhatsApp without giving the app access to your contacts. It's a little cumbersome to set up new chats, but generally works.
Messages may be end-to-end encrypted, but there is a plaintext portion of the chain with messages potentially sitting for up to 24 hours while waiting on delivery.
There is also the story of the metadata they are able to read and store. Nothing is free and WhatsApp isn’t an exception.
There is also the story of the metadata they are able to read and store. Nothing is free and WhatsApp isn’t an exception.
As of 2024, the country counts over 310 million smartphone users and a smartphone penetration rateof over 96 percent.
Source: https://www.statista.com/topics/2711/us-smartphone-market/#topicOverview
I was successful in pestering the family and close friends enough to install either Threema or Signal as a secondary messenger. But that's about it. And iMessage is indeed really rare (I think I have two contacts who use it). If anything, Discord seems to grow, at least among nerdier people. Yet, I feel your observation that by rejecting WhatsApp you lock yourself out of a larger number of conversations is probably still true.
Sure, to send a few words it works. But sending SMS internationally will cost you a fortune, at least here in Europe. So most people avoid it if possible. Also, with WA you can send messages over Wifi. That's a big plus when you don't have data roaming.
Not going to check. The data is clearly wrong. There could be 310 million smartphones but not users. According to USA age pyramid, there are 40 million kids 9 years old and younger. 20 millions of them are 4 years and younger.
my brother in law asked me to install WhatsApp so he could just use the app he uses in Italy I told him I didn't use it before it got the Zuck treatment so I certainly won't be installing it now
yes, and I believe that is the reason why WhatsApp took off in Europe, sending a SMS from one country to the next cost like an arm and a leg.
And that's part of my it did not take off in the US as most people have unlimited plans on voice min/text messages.
I think it is well over a decade that I got charged for test messages ...
my family and I switched to whats app due to my brother using android (pixel 8 pro) and me switching between Android and Ios. imessage is a bust when communicating with non ios devices. Currently on the i15pm , but will probably switch back to a fold soon. Waiting on pixels 2nd gen fold to see how it compares to samsung fold 6