This is so strange, no one in my social circle uses WhatsApp or has ever asked me to use it to talk to them. It’s all iMessage, Snapchat, and a growing group of people on Signal.
Messaging clients tend to be regional. WhatsApp is massive in Europe. From what I gather WeChat is dominant in mainland China but Hong Kong still used WhatsApp (though I think they might be coming round to Signal?) and the US, who have a higher ratio of Apple users vs the rest of the world, tend to use iMessage a lot more.
Interoperability between these systems should be a public policy goal. I don't have to buy an AT&T phone anymore to call my friends; not sure why I have to buy iOS to chat with them.
I agree with you but this is a problem that date backs to the 90s (anyone remember Bitlbee, Trillion, Pidgeon, etc?). Unfortunately incompatibility is seen by businesses a feature rather than a flaw -- despite the annoyances it causes for users.
There's been a few open standards. The problem isn't that standards exist, it's that walled gardens are generally more profitable.
In fact Google Talk, Facebook Messenger and Skype were all either based upon, or supported XMPP...and now don't. Slack used to support IRC and not doesn't. There's a term often credited to Microsoft that also applies here: embrace, extend, extinguish.
I don't mind the interoperability. Take email for example. Even if you avoid Gmail/Google, so many people do, so Googs eventually gets your email anyway. So we chat, even if you don't use FB, if someone you chat with does, they still get that conversation. So the interoperability provides a buffer or insulator between you and the company you are wanting to avoid.
Then again, I've kinda given up on email privacy since at least half of my emails go to Google's servers anyway. I'm not sure if we can avoid Facebook having my IP address (or whatever future attack vectors are found after the protocol has been standardised) if I message WhatsApp users from my Signal account.
Interoperability is tricky when one set of apps has end to end encryption as a requirement, and the other set has absence of end to end encryption as a requirement.
You're completely right that messaging clients is regional, but it's even more regional than just "Europe". I'm always confused when people claim that WhatsApp is huge in Europe, because I know literally only two people who use it. They only use WhatsApp because they have friends outside Europe.
I think we need to think in terms of single countries when talking messaging apps. Again take WhatsApp. Pretty big in Germany and Spain, but almost non-existing in Denmark (who instead rely more on Facebook Messenger or iMessage).
I assume you're in the US. In most of Europe Whatsapp is the main communication platform. SMS is dead and Android is more popular than iOS, so no iMessage either.
In the UAE (Dubai, Abu Dhabi, etc), it's almost impossible to live without WhatsApp since almost every business does customer support using it.
Want to get a delivery? You'll be told about it via WhatsApp. Want to order food online? WhatsApp. Want to pick up your laundry? WhatsApp. etc. It's everywhere here and totally dominant. Deciding not to use it would make your life significantly harder.
I tried to precipiate a shift away from Whatsapp the last time they did a privacy grab a year or two ago. But so many people use it for group messaging. The gravity around Whatsapp is enough to prevent people swapping to Signal in my circles.
Now I've got so many messaging apps. I just want one. Only one.
It can depend a lot on where in the world you and your friend group are or are from. It's quite popular with the Indian H1B contractors in my office in the US for example but not too many of my US friends use it. Same story with my fiancé and her lab groups which have a lot of European grad students and post docs, it's quite common there too.