Why is WhatsApp so ubiquitous everywhere BUT North America?
Why is WhatsApp so ubiquitous everywhere BUT North America?
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?
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You use iMessage, but that is an Apple-specific thing and can't even be used on Android phones. Also, Apple does the whole "green bubble blue bubble" thing you got going on and deliberately doesnt support RCS (which would bring stuff like image support to SMS). So we need a messenger than can be used on both iPhones and Android phones. WhatsApp was initially the most popular and thats why it still is.
Apple is adopting RCS this year
But not the google proprietary RCS
Thats good to hear but its hard to switch away from an established product. For example, there is Signal, which has all of WhatsApps features and is completely privacy-oriented but everyone would have to switch at once for it to work...
There is a big uproar about Apple not using googles RCS because (and if I remember correctly) googles RCS is a walled off garden much like iMessage so when Apple does implement RCS it still won’t work on Google devices. Might have to fact check me but I believe that was the early consensus.
It will as far as I know, it just won't work with the additional features Google have slapped on top but haven't bothered to try to include in the open standard. It makes sense why people would want it since it includes stuff like E2E encryption, but it's better this way, since like this the open standard actually has the chance to get these features in the future.