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by melvinmt 4159 days ago
> I won't carry an extra phone for each messenger

Then you're probably not part of the target market. In a lot of developing countries (India etc), WhatsApp is the primary reason to get a phone.
2 comments
dingaling 4159 days ago
Plus many phones in those markets are dual-SIM, so you would still have a voice / data SIM installed.
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brazzy 4159 days ago
Don't most dual-SIM phones allow only one of the SIM cards to be used for data connections?
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sanju 4159 days ago
but developing countries still prefer to talk over chat.. if it comes to phone. young people in india use WhatApp as an alternative to email. so like we dont pay for email address.. no one will pay for WhatApp.. there are alternative like viber.. quite popular in india
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unsigner 4159 days ago
You don't pay for an email address, because thanks to email interoperability (not openness, which is a separate albeit related thing) a free email address is a decent substitute for a non-free email address. Viber is not the same kind of substitute for WhatsApp when all your friends/family are on WhatsApp. (I live in a market where everybody is on Viber btw, so the WhatsApp card is worthless even if they paid me $0.01 for each WhatsApp message sent)
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