Hacker News Reader

Comment by noncoml | Hacker News Reader

Almost everybody I know has at least 2 messaging apps installed on their phone.

What's to stop people start migrating to Signal/Telegram/Viber/Keybase/etc.. once WhatsApp starts displaying ads?

I think you are an outlier in that regard. Almost nobody I know is using any other messaging app instead of WhatsApp, and I just graduated out of University so my social circle consists of a lot of fresh engineering grads. It is hard for me to convince even my batchmates to install signal. I think people don't want to install anything else as none of their contacts are on any other platform.

It really depends on where you live. If you're in say, India, then sure, what you've said is probably true. But it's certainly not true everywhere in the world.

Since we're sharing anecdotes as qualitative data points, my experience has been the exact opposite: every last one of my friends that were on WhatsApp have migrated to Signal. I followed them. We're all US based, with two exceptions in the UK.

I tried to get my friends who use WhatsApp to switch to Signal during the big Delete Facebook movement... I got a lot of pushback. It did not happen. :(

pushing people to change habits is hard...

Where are you from? I think location and Culture makes a huge difference. Whatsapp wasnt even a thing in US before Facebook bought it. France was mainly iMessages ( transition from SMS ) before Facebook acquired WhatsApp.

Then there are places like China which no one uses WhatsApp.

WhatsApp has giant user bases in India, South America, and Africa.

Here in Mexico too.

WhatsApp and especially LINE were heavily used in China until they were blocked. After that, local company Tencent's WeChat became dominant.

Everybody has a certain messaging app on their phone: it's called SMS. Add one more, that's already two.

Are there good apps that support "chat room" style activities? Google Messages falls over when you try to send out mass messages. I'd like to see a sms app that allows one to have mass messaging - it's the only reason I keep WhatsApp around - coordinating with a group of friends.

Do Telegram groups, supergroups, or channels fit the bill?

https://telegram.org/faq#q-what-39s-the-difference-between-g...

SMS sucks, though.

Sure. So do centralized, mobile-only systems, where your id is a phone number.

And not just a phone number, but a phone number in a specific format.

It took me more than 10 minutes to figure out how to add a friend with a phone number from Spain. The trick was adding a space in the right place. In the meantime, she couldn't find me by my US number.

Turns out, different countries format the phone numbers differently, and Whatsapp gets confused. Just for US numbers, you have +1(xxx)xxx-xxxx, xxx-xxx-xxxx, 1xxxxxxxxxx, xxxxxxxxxx,(xxx)xxx xxxx, xxx xxx xxxx - and I don't know which one Whatsapp uses internally for ID.

For what it's worth, entering the phone number exactly as it shows up on my account info didn't work.

TL;DR: a phone number does not a good ID make.

I can install (and have installed) as many chatting apps as possible. But what is the point? I mean I will have to use the app everyone else is using (which in my case is Whatsapp).

Honestly speaking, I actually tried to ditch whatsapp but failed.

> Honestly speaking, I actually tried to ditch whatsapp but failed.

I found it hard to get people to switch to signal because there are no user visible benefits and it's a little less polished. But the first day Whatsapp puts in ads..

I doubt it, Signal is terrible. Extremely sterile user experience, almost the complete opposite of something like LINE. They need to make it more fun.

Yuck. Video calling and looking like the built-in apps is all that is wanted.

Line is clearly the most fun - making most of their money from selling virtual stickers.

> What's to stop people start migrating to Signal/Telegram/Viber/Keybase/etc.. once WhatsApp starts displaying ads?

The same thing that is currently forcing them to use more than one chat app, no matter which one they prefer: Network effect. If you can't convince all your friends to switch at once to one system, you'll be stuck between a rock (e.g. ad-infested/data-leaking WhatsApp) and a hard place (friends reaching out to you much less frequently because it's a PITA to reach you).

> What's to stop people start migrating to Signal/Telegram/Viber/Keybase/etc.. once WhatsApp starts displaying ads?

Network effects.

Network effect.

My anecdote - out of, say, 50 people I know, two have Telegram. The rest use a combination of iMessage, Facebook messenger, and WhatsApp.

22yo male.

Telegram here has the reputation of a chat app you might use to hide naughty online liaisons from your wife. Like something indexed to an alternative identity.

(So: like what the internet used to be like in olden times. But still.)

Huh. I used it with my wife - she was the only one willing to give it a try.

Telegram is a hands-down better experience than whats app.

I think it’s the first one to give the ability to edit messages after you sent them.

I have 12. No real switching cost.

Telegram - Thought Leaders + productivity Slack - Biz stuff Line - Thai ppl WeChat - Chinese ppl Hangouts - school + free calls Viber - Old way to call WhatsApp - Late adopters Messeger - Sheeple Signal - Privacy people Keybase - Experimental iMessage - Grandmas and Moms Skype - backup plan Kin - Umm

My friends fall roughly into three groups:

- People who have at least 4+ messenger apps installed (these are the tiniest minority, and we mostly chat on Riot.im)

- FB Messenger users who only have Messenger installed (these are a dwindling minority—I communicate with them through the web interface or SMS)

- Whatsapp users who only have WhatsApp installed (this is basically almost everyone)

I have friends and family spanning four different countries (U.S. and southeast Asia), so I use WhatsApp, FB Messenger, GroupMe, and WeChat regularly.

in what country it's groupme popular?

the same reason people didnt switch off facebook when they started showing ads. Or instagram. Or Twitter.

the network.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com