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Comment by larrik | Hacker News Reader

Is WhatsApp more of a European thing? I don't believe I've ever seen anyone use it (in the northeast US). I usually don't even remember what it is when I see stories about it. I've certainly never considered signing up for it.

Maybe I'm too old.

Meanwhile my wife tried to quit Facebook, and did alright, but you definitely miss out on stuff. Especially since my town has a "Chats" group that it seems the whole town is in, sharing news and bitching at each other (it's better than it sounds).

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Most people in Latin America, and India have it. I also have plenty of African friends that use it. Not sure about Europe, China uses WeChat.

The reason is that cellphone carriers used to charge you by the message (I speak from experience in Mexico), this was expensive compared to the average wage. Cheaper to just connect to WiFi, and send as many messages as you want.

Also, WhatsApp was one of the first popular and reliable messaging systems for cellphones. If offline or with poor signal, your messages where enqueued, and sent when you had signal. Facebook nor Skype had this back a few years ago.

US is a rich country, SMS has been cheap since I've lived in the us (4 years). 3 hours of minimum wage, $30, for unlimited everything, data, SMS, calls. WhatsApp didn't really solve a problem.

It's quite popular in Europe and extremely so in Israel (IIRC they have >85% penetration there) so it doesn't seem unreliable infrastructure or expensive SMS would be the main factors in every place. Though at least in my experience, in europe it seems mostly used for small-ish "trusted" group chats to shoot the shit or prepare/synchronise stuff.

I think factors that play a role everywhere are features (attachments and the like), and quite possibly the way it's tied to your phone. And all of it being as reliable as sms means there are no real downsides.

US is a rich country, SMS has been cheap since I've lived in the us

SMS is free in most/all of Europe as well, yet people use WhatsApp. So it's not just price.

I don't have to worry about where the other person is; I can send WhatsApp messages to my family back in the US, or to friends here in the Netherlands, but it doesn't cost me anything. SMS to local numbers is free, but it's not free to send an SMS to the US

It's not free for me, granted you can get unlimited texting plans very cheap. But why bother for a service that won't even let you send a picture?

In some parts of Europe it is huge. I remember friends in Romania and Hungary using it in the same way that friends in the US use Facebook Messenger, for example: the default messaging application to be sure to be able to contact everyone they need to speak to. Here in France I get the feeling it is used less but it is still a popular option, and major events I have been to have included a WhatsApp contact for sponsors and exhibitors to get a quick hold of organisers/help.

In Brazil it is the main form of communication, My 80 years old mother and my 12 year old son use it. Has practically 100% of market penetration. I just know 1 person who deleted it.

The main reason was the overly priced SMS messages.

At least here in the Netherlands it is what SMS (texting) used to be and then some. Even the help desks of many companies can be directly reached over Whatsapp. I think I know only a handful of people (mostly elderly) that don't use it. It is the standard. Personally I'm trying to get people to use Signal. I'm using it with some friends now, but non-techy people are all Whatsapp.

In Spain they use the groups feature a lot.

It's huge here in Italy. Even businesses use it as an officiale channel for contacting their customers.

In France, I kind of missed the bandwagon. Maybe I just meet with my friends too often for it to be useful?

Mail, phone and text (SMS/MMS) are more than enough. And grandma still doesn't own a smartphone anyway.

WhatsApp is extremely popular in Germany (And judging from the other comments it's generally popular in continental Europe.)

I'm in NYC, and pretty much anyone I know in my personal life uses it. At work, no one uses it.

Here in Singapore it's what everyone uses.

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