[pkamb]

I think Apple already has claimed the "friends and family network" via iMessage. Did Facebook go to a groups/influencer algorithm by choice or is it the result of IRL friend posters all moving to private chats once everyone got iPhones?

[eknkc]

Everytime iMessage is mentioned, I do a double take because it is almost non existent here in Turkey. And from what I hear, seems like most Europeans do not use it too.

WhatsApp has like 99.9% market share here and I assume it is a lot bigger than anything else in the EU too.

I wonder why is that though. Everyone around me has an iPhone basically and I haven’t received a blue bubble in years. The messages app is not even on my home screen.

[pkamb]

As I understand it, many Americans (and all iPhones?) had unlimited-SMS phone plans circa 2009. So the pay-per-message economic conditions that caused many Europeans, etc., to switch to WhatsApp back in the day didn't do anything in the USA.

Then when the same iPhone app seamlessly started sending iMessages (blue bubbles) to other iPhones rather than SMS (green bubbles), people just kept using that.

[thisissomething]

This is definitely what happened in Brazil.

When Whatsapp launched, SMS still wasn't free, the exception being some carriers that offered "free" SMS to numbers of the same carrier if the sender was on a premium coverage plan. In sum, majority of the population was still paying $0,10-$0,20 despite already having data plans. So it was an easy win for WhatsApp.

[basisword]

>> So the pay-per-message economic conditions that caused many Europeans, etc., to switch to WhatsApp back in the day didn't do anything in the USA.

I see this listed as the reason often but I had unlimited SMS then too. In fact I remember visiting the US in 2009 and I was charged to send AND receive an SMS which was a shock.

I think the actual reason is that communication across borders in Europe is very common and those SMS's were not included in the unlimited plans as they were messages abroad. So they were subject to fees (usually high ones). I think this is the reason it was common - especially given how common it is for students to study 'abroad' in other European countries. There were a few competing apps for this at the time (Vibr I think was another but was more call focussed) but WhatsApp won in the end.

[thoroughburro]

>> So the pay-per-message economic conditions that caused many Europeans, etc., to switch to WhatsApp back in the day

> I think the actual reason is that communication across borders in Europe is very common and those SMS's were not included in the unlimited plans as they were messages abroad. So they were subject to fees (usually high ones).

So, you completely agree with what you seem to be taking issue with.

[yurishimo]

Yepp, this is my theory too. When you live in a country with friends 2 hours away by car in a totally different country, paying extra for "long distance" is absurd when tools exist to communicate with no extra fees.

[thegeomaster]

Viber is alive and well nowadays and is the dominant messaging app in quite a few geographies. Given that Facebook Messenger seems to also have about the same MAU as WhatsApp (and seems to be dominant in the US), I don't think you can say any one of those "won".

[basisword]

>> Viber is alive and well nowadays and is the dominant messaging app in quite a few geographies

Interesting! I haven't heard mention of Viber since around 2011. When I said WhatsApp 'won' I meant that wherever I have been in Europe WhatsApp seems to be in use by people and by businesses. It's almost accepted you'll have an account and used as an alternative to email/phone numbers. I understand global MAU may show a different reality and certain locales may still be dominated by other platforms.

[brap]

Same, I’m not even European, but literally everyone uses WhatsApp for everything where I live, iPhones or not.

The only thing I get in my Messages app is verification codes and spam.

I don’t think I got a single SMS/iMessage from a human in the last 5 years.

[arkh]

> Everyone around me has an iPhone

You may be in a bubble.

Huawei and other Chinese phones are not banned in the EU. So you can get your hands on 100€ to 200€ smartphones which are more than enough for most people. Hence a lot less iPhones (but a ton more spywares).

[stevage]

Can also report WhatsApp has 100% of the backpackers meeting each other market.

[Zak]

That's only true if everyone in the group has an Apple phone, which has decreasing probability with every additional member. Excluding people from a conversation because they don't have the right brand of phone would be pretty antisocial.

[crmd]

Unfortunately it happens all the time in my friends circle, and it's for technical not anti-social reasons. Group texts that include Android users are so buggy that they tend to die out, whereas iMessage-only groups tend to be long lasting. For this reason we use WhatsApp for the core group chat, but there's still a ton of side-conversations and meme-ing in iMessage groups.

[basisword]

>> For this reason we use WhatsApp for the core group chat, but there's still a ton of side-conversations and meme-ing in iMessage groups.

I don't understand why you would use two chat systems when you know one is excluding some friends? Why not just centralise on WhatsApp which you're already using? Serious question. I can understand why switching is a big ask but when you're already using the multi-platform option part of the time switching back and forth seems unnecessary and inconvenient.

[fkyoureadthedoc]

Because the majority of my communication is already in iMessage and I don't want to bother with another app. I also by default opt out of any Zuckerberg operations that I can, they get enough of my data without me having an account on any of their platforms as is.

[pkamb]

In the USA, someone insisting on using an Android when everyone else in their social circle has an iPhone (and they do!) is what's seen as anti-social. No one wants to use the degraded green bubble SMS experience so they simply exclude the Android user and continue using blue bubble iMessage.

[StressedDev]

I have never ever seen this. If your "friends" treat you badly because of your phone choice, they are not really your friends. Also, iMessage is not that great. It's nice but it is not amazing like some people make it out to be.

[jkman]

I totally agree with you, but it's pretty obvious why this behaviour exists. At the end of the day, a cell phone is as much a status symbol, something akin to the clothes you wear, as much as it is an actual phone. Would you potentially lower your opinion of someone wearing a strange piece of clothing? The principle is exactly the same.

[patja]

Happens a lot with adolescents. They can be quite exclusionary.

[wrfrmers]

I'll do you one better: in this specific situation, the antisocial buck stops at the friend group who doesn't all chip in and buy their Android friend a "keep in touch" iPhone.

But the point remains that a cynical UX/technical/business decision that does not need to be so is rending real relationships between actual people. If Tim Cook had the power to render anyone who didn't pay him $400+ mute to their friends and family through some sort of black magic, we'd call him a comic book supervillain.

[satvikpendem]

I bought an Android specifically so I don't have to use an iPhone, speaking as a former iPhone user. "Friends" chipping in to buy me an iPhone isn't something I'd actually want.

[ryandrake]

Honestly, if your "friend" group is willing to exclude you because you're not using a particular brand of cell phone, then I have some bad news for you: They might not really be great friends.

[ben7799]

This is not really true since RCS launched. It does most of what people care about. Everyone sees Emojis and a few other special Fx and videos and pictures now look good for everyone and don't get nerfed as soon as one user is on Android.

Maybe RCS doesn't do all the esoteric iMessage stuff but it doesn't necessarily have to, half those extra features are gatekeeped on having the latest iPhone or whatever and so they don't get used as often.

[pkamb]

This is potentially true; I've noticed green-bubble chats are much less annoying in the last year. Do they send over Wifi now? That was also a killer iMessage feature on trips with bad cell coverage.

[Zak]

It surprises me people who actually have this problem don't just switch to a different messaging app. There are many, and the effort required is minimal.

[account42]

It's called a network effect for a reason. People don't want to use multiple apps so they generally will want all of their friends to be using the same app. Switching to a different app for one friend group adds significant friction.

This is why we need legally mandated interopability for call communications platforms above a certain size. It's absurd that the situation today is worse than the early 2000's where you could use one program to talk to your ICQ, MSN and Aim friends.

[PaulHoule]

Hell yeah.

Before there was the pandemic and 'Zoom Fatigue' there were other applications such as Skype, Google Meet, WebEx, Go2Meeting and many more that went through a variation of Doctorow's 'enshittification cycle' although it isn't so much that these became commercially exploitative but rather the honeymoon period ended.

If, for instance I want you to try a new "meeting" program your response is likely to be "this could be such a hassle" and the vendor has a strong incentive to make it work well so I can say, "Remember how well Skype used to work ten years ago? Zoom is like that now". In that early phase the vendor invests in quality, once it has an established user base it is 'competing' on the basis of dominance of a two sided market and there isn't any need to invest in quality. (In fact, investors insist on disinvestment because they want to take profits after years of losses.) Eventually it gets so bad that even the two sided market dominance can't save them anymore and a new competitor comes in.

If chat and messaging programs were interoperable, vendors would be competing on quality instead of relying on two-sided market dominance, and we'd have seen the user experience improve rapidly and dramatically over the past 20 years instead of going sideways. I mean, "remember how good ICQ was?"

[olyjohn]

Sounds like those people weren't good friends anyways. What kind of friends exclude you for petty shit like this?

[canucker2016]

Unless you're a teen in the USA.

Non-iPhone users are the minority in this demographic (<= 13%), see my demographic comment elsewhere for this subject.

[john2x]

I'm still waiting for iMessage to work with Android phones.

[thesuitonym]

iMessage has been compatible with RCS for months now.

[42772827]

Except if you’re on Google Fi, right?

https://isgooglefircsyet.com/

[ninkendo]

That is ironic, given how the whole push to get Apple to support RCS came from google in the first place. They had that website with the open letter to try and tell Apple that supporting RCS was in everyone’s best interest and would enable Apple and Android users to be on even footing, etc etc.

But then oops, turns out Google’s on wireless service doesn’t even support it. Maybe google didn’t think Apple would call their bluff?

[PaulHoule]

Google stole Microsoft's position of "arrogant company that just doesn't get it". What I found about Google comms product was that they worked the worst on slow internet connections of any product. Back when I had 2 Mbps or worse DSL, I could get on meetings with anything that wasn't Google Hangouts, Google Talk, Google Meet, etc. It's like it was with Docker Hub, which had low timeouts that made it impossible for me to actually download images to install anything substantial.

That, plus other little slights like only buying high-quality aerial photos of upstate NY years after Microsoft did left me feeling that Google saw me as a non-person because I didn't live in the bay area, NYC, LA or DC.

[whimsicalism]

yeah and that is apple's fault, they need to carrier enable

[john2x]

A quick search suggests the Android user end needs to install 3rd party apps for it to work? Has that changed recently?

[Melatonic]

Usually you actually need to not use third party apps. RCS on Android is usually restricted to Google Messages (or maybe Samsungs built in messages app). Everyone else got the boot

You also sometimes have to enable in the settings for Android Messages (and have a supported carrier). iMessage also has an option to enable RCS but I believe its on by default in the newer versions of iOS

[john2x]

Hmm ok so it doesn't actually work :(

Even if it worked with 3rd party apps, at that point why not install something like Signal.

[thesuitonym]

I don't know, I haven't used Android in quite a few years, but it was my understanding that it was in Google's default SMS app. When I got iOS 18, all of my texts to Android users switched automatically to RCS, so they didn't have to do anything.

[pohuing]

I wrote an "SMS" to the previous tenant of my new flat recently and it got seamlessly upgraded to rcs. With me on an android and them on an iPhone. This was using Google messages, which was the default on my zenfone for sms

[phatskat]

My friend group chat was suddenly RCS after updating iOS today and it’s great - no more “So and so liked ‘the entire message body’” messages, we all just see the thumbs up reaction

[skissane]

> I think Apple already has claimed the "friends and family network" via iMessage.

All the family/friends group chats I am in are WhatsApp.

I use iMessage every day for 1-to-1 messaging but I don’t really view it as distinct from SMS.

For international communication, even 1-on-1 tends to be WhatsApp.

[stevage]

Nobody I know uses iMessage.

[ghaff]

In the US, using iMessage involves flipping a switch in some Messages setting--and everyone I know in the US just texts, except for texting with international folks.

[dboreham]

Quick note that I'm in the US and my experience is: most random people use SMS; closer friends and family some use Signal, some Discord, some email; colleagues use Slack; overseas taxi drivers etc. use WhatsApp.

[pkamb]

By "use SMS" you surely mean "use iMessage" much of the time.

[spunker540]

If op is on android they wont know who uses imessage

[Auracle]

No switch flipping needed, if you send a text to another iPhone it’ll just do an iMessage instead.

[ghaff]

It may be on by default but there is a switch in Settings/Apps/Messages.

[create-username]

Nobody uses iMessage in Spain. People swear by Zuck's spyware

[addicted]

iMessage is dead/dying. WhatsApp is killing it.

At this point even my American groups have become largely WhatsApp because Android exists.