[karhuton]

As someone who’s stuck with Whatsapp and no way out (friends and family won’t switch), I dearly hope for a split.

I do struggle to understand how we here casually lump tohether totally different platforms as comptetitors.

It’s not like I can use Youtube or Tiktok instead of Whatsapp with my family for direct and group discussion. Even X and Instagram would be a stretch, as their raison d’être is public social media and not instant messaging.

Sure the platforms have overlapping features, but you ain’t gonna use a knife insted of a spoon.

[Spivak]

YouTube, X, and Tiktok compete with Meta's products in different verticals so it's not really a fair comparison. But at the same time WhatsApp is drowning in competition from a thousand different messengers so I'm not sure if this point really matters.

Like X isn't competing with FB Marketplace but Craigslist sure is. TikTok isn't competing with FB Events but Apple Events and Eventbrite are.

[skydhash]

As long as WhatsApp have a strong backer like Meta, then using the term competition is meaningless. In many countries, WA is the de facto IM platform, but I can bet that it hasn't received a dim from those users. So how do they pay their developers, infrastructure, and surrounding resources?

[yodsanklai]

> As someone who’s stuck with Whatsapp and no way out (friends and family won’t switch), I dearly hope for a split.

But what will it change for users? you'll still be stuck with What's app, except that it won't be owned by Meta.

[BrtByte]

Yeah, 100% agree - calling all these platforms "competitors" just because they exist on the same internet feels like tech company lawyer logic, not reality.

[spacebanana7]

Use email. Everyone has an email address and it's socially awkward for them if they don't respond. Also has all the benefits of being an open protocol rather than a corporate garden.

[rreichman]

using an email for chat like people use whatsapp is not practical

[sudahtigabulan]

it's a matter of UI.

https://delta.chat/

It even has E2EE, as long as people use the same client (or a compatible one).

[rpgbr]

>[…] it's socially awkward for them if they don't respond

Out of corporate contexts, email is only used to register for services, newsletters, and recover passwords. It's a shame, I prefer email over messaging for anything non-urgent.

[fransje26]

> It’s not like I can use Youtube or Tiktok instead of Whatsapp with my family for direct and group discussion.

What's wrong with Signal? Or, worst-case scenario, Telegram?

[_fat_santa]

> What's wrong with Signal? Or, worst-case scenario, Telegram?

IMO from a technical perspective nothing but more of how do you get your entire network to migrate from one chat app to another. Everyone here says just get your parents, siblings, friends to switch but it's far more complicated than that.

My wife is from Brazil and uses WA all the time. Getting her to switch would mean getting her entire network of family and friends to switch and you would have to make that pitch to everyone in the "network". All of a sudden it goes from getting a few people to switch to getting literally thousands to switch which is next to impossible.

[rpgbr]

Plus, all carriers in Brazil exempts WhatsApp from data caps (zero-rating). They are working on remove other apps from zero-rating, but WhatsApp is harder to since it's synonymous to “messages” here and alternatives are expensive (SMS) or not as near widespread (Telegram is a far runner-up mostly used for its semi-public, huge groups).

[DrFalkyn]

Is there some law that you can only use a single messaging app ?

[emblaegh]

It’s hard to overstate the pervasiveness of WhatsApp in some some countries. Where I’m from work, service hiring, costumer service, etc are all conducted through (and specially for small businesses only though) WhatsApp.

[fransje26]

That's very true, in the same way that some countries seem to prefer using Facebook as "websites" for small businesses.

But this doesn't stop people from migrating their private interactions away from WhatsApp/Meta, by using using -as an example- Signal as their replacement app of choice where they can. The frictional cost of keeping WhatsApp for business interaction, and Signal for private interaction is fairly close to zero.

[Gasp0de]

What's the use case for using Telegram over Whatsapp? At least the latter has proper end-to-end encryption of content?

[fsflover]

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43563574

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43562320

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32950204

[emsign]

You're srewed either way if you live in the USA.