WhatsApp this week reached a significant milestone of 100 million monthly active users in the United States, a market traditionally dominated by...

The achievement, announced in an official blog post, indicates a potential shift in the American messaging landscape, where WhatsApp has steadily gained ground despite the longstanding popularity of Apple’s iMessage. The Meta-owned messaging app is extremely popular in Europe owing to its cross-platform compatibility.

  • Gloria@sh.itjust.works
    353·
    3 months ago

    Disgusting. How was the merger of Facebook and Whatsapp allowed in the first place is beyond me. FB Messenger and WhatsApp are the most popular messenger services in the western world and are coming from the same company. The illusion of choice.

    • .:\dGh/:.@lemmy.ml
      201·
      3 months ago

      The Meta-owned messaging app is extremely popular in Europe owing to its cross-platform compatibility.

      There you have it. If iMessages was cross platform, people would use it, but it doesn’t, so people will pivot for the second best thing.

      Also, Northamerica SMS roots are deep, deeper than Europe, Asia and Latinamerica. Disgusting or not, the people already made its choice: $1 a year was too much.

      • Atherel@lemmy.dbzer0.com
        7·
        3 months ago

        I did pay $1 shortly before they were bought by Facebook. But then everyone already had WhatsApp and didn’t want to change. I use Signal as often as possible but non tech savvy people are impossible to persuade to switch.

        • GregorGizeh@lemmy.zip
          4·
          3 months ago

          I simply uninstalled WA. I have signal, threema and as a sort of compromise towards the average users I also have a Foss telegram client. If the wa users dont also have either of these, tough shit. Send me a text then I guess

          • Atherel@lemmy.dbzer0.com
            2·
            3 months ago

            I’d love to but the consequence would just be that I’m missing even more from family, club etc.

            WA completely replaced SMS here from the very beginning. There were phone providers with subs where WA traffic was free when flatrates weren’t common.

      • fer0n@lemmy.worldOP
        2·
        3 months ago

        I agree. Similar to all the anti-competitive lawsuits Apple has to deal with regarding the App Store because they’re clinging to every last dollar they can squeeze out of it, their iMessage approach seems to be going a similar way.

        I’m sure tons of people are buying iPhones because of iMessage, but it looks like that might be slowly eroding away. In the end, they’ll have lost both their relevance in the messaging area and a strong reason for people to buy iPhones. They should’ve just made an Android app for iMessage.