[skrebbel]

In most countries one of these is the one everybody uses, and it works on every phone. In the US, the country is split, mostly by economic class, between people on iMessage and “the rest”.

I’m not saying “whatsapp is effectively a monopoly in $country” is great, but it’s better than the US situation. You can buy a $50 phone and use the ubiquitous messaging app.

[drstewart]

>I’m not saying “whatsapp is effectively a monopoly in $country” is great, but it’s better than the US situation.

Ah, so it's better to have a monopoly than not have a monopoly?

Also, what are your thoughts on the "US situation" given that the US is suing Apple for having a monopoly (literally the headline of the article)? Sounds like the rest of the world.

Can I ask why the rest of the world, particularly the EU, which is supposedly so "pro-consumer", isn't breaking up these monopolies held by billion dollar corporations in their countries?

[johnnyanmac]

There are differences between monopoly and centralization, and usually the government steps in to resolve such distinctions as a party that is (theoretically) serving the people instead of profis. That's what SMS was supposed to do and why they invested billions on landlines to support it.

But government most like molasses and sms is decades behind, so tech surpassed such standards. It's not a preferred result but an inevitable one.

>Can I ask why the rest of the world, particularly the EU, which is supposedly so "pro-consumer", isn't breaking up these monopolies held by billion dollar corporations in their countries

Is this rhetorical or have you not in fact heard about the DMA more or less doing the same thing the US is doing here, but years prior?

The big obvious problem here is that an EU country can't just order a US company to disband. And the result of anti-trust to begin with isn't to destroy companies, they want to level the playing field and open the door for more companies to compete properly.

[xvector]

1. The monopolies literally make no money - WhatsApp is run at cost and doesn't turn a profit.

2. You are not gonna have universal phone-number based messaging that is E2EE without a monopoly. Even RCS has monopolistic gateways. Decentralized/federated systems suck and don't easily work with phone numbers.

3. If you keep breaking up chat applications as soon as they reach a certain size, you're not helping consumers in any way. People use WhatsApp because it's good, reliable, and E2EE. Breaking it up provides literally no value to consumers.

[ripdog]

I live in NZ, there's no standard here. It's damned annoying. I've heard that Facebook Messenger is the most popular, but I only know one person who uses it and I don't have an account myself.

[xgl5k]

In the US there is only iMessage and regular SMS. SMS is interoperable with iMessage. People are just making a much bigger deal about the green bubbles than they should.

[johnnyanmac]

>People are just making a much bigger deal about the green bubbles than they should.

If you didn't grow up Gen Z you don't really understand. It's just another of the endless ways you can get bullied indirectly for being "poor" or "nerdy".

Peer pressure is a real phenomenon, and there is a point here when that peer pressure is manufactured by the company itself to get people to buy their stuff.