[esotericn]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KbWfzyQBWrU

> Most Popular Instant Messengers 1997 - 2019

WhatsApp has approx. 2 billion users. The beginning of that video starts out with messengers (not including things like IRC and email) that have a few million.

This is just the Eternal September effect.

You and I can just crack out nginx and host a site. The author of this post didn't even do that; what hope is there for the rest?

An instant messenger, even a secure one, needs a proper marketing budget in order to succeed out in the real world. It doesn't just need to be superior - it needs to be _advertised_.