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Comment by crazygringo | Hacker News Reader

> something as simple as a "green bubble" or a "blue bubble" just like bullying for having a more affordable brand of shoes

This meme that it's "just about the color of the bubble" has got to die.

Messaging over SMS is way worse in every way. Group messaging breaks inconsistently in ten different ways, you have issues with attachments, you miss a bunch of other features, etc.

When you text in groups as much as teens do, these things matter. Not being able to use half the features you regularly use because one person in the group chat is Android is going to be legitimately frustrating.

What's interesting, however, is why the US population has settled on iMessage for premium messaging features, instead of WhatsApp like so many other countries.

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Why would I download another app? iMessage is baked in. Heck I can send reactions to my friends messages with their android phones now. That’s as much as I care about as an adult.

Right, I'm that way too. But the rest of the world basically chose to download another app instead.

So that's what I wonder about -- why did the US not bother, but the rest of the world did? What was different about the US?

> Right, I'm that way too. But the rest of the world basically chose to download another app instead.

> So that's what I wonder about -- why did the US not bother, but the rest of the world did? What was different about the US?

Not sure about the rest of the world, but India specifically, has more whatsapp users because we have more Android users. iPhone is considered more of a luxury here, even now and with millions using android devices, ios users do end up downloading a common app that everyone has. Also helped by the fact that there's no standardisation of message apps in android, though Google messages is trying RCS, more than half the phones don't ship with Google messages, even the close to stock ones like OnePlus have their own implementation, so a third party became standard for even android to android communication.

The UK has a lot of iPhones but WhatsApp is still the default messaging app.

Still substantially fewer as compared to the US.

I think you have to switch your assumptions around. The cross platform solution of a communicator should be considered more likely to win out in a competitive duopoly.

I think you'll find that sms costs were more expensive at the time users in certain countries started switching to whatsapp compared to the usa

That’s not a mystery. iPhone market share is highest in the US.

You can’t use iMessage if most other people you are interacting with are using WhatsApp.

There is a real need for better messaging than SMS and MMS. In particular easy sharing of photos and videos is the crucial and central feature. Easy group messaging is probably another important aspect.

So both WhatsApp and iMessage provide these valuable features, however the best messaging service is of no use if you can’t communicate with the people you want to communicate with.

Because of the Android and iOS duopoly I would typically expect the cross platform solution to win out for such a use case, even if it is a bit more inconvenient.

What iMessage has going for it is that it has a relatively transparent fallback mode – I think that made it even possible for it to compete.

However, the US is still the clear aberration here, not the rest of the world. It seems to just have worked out there in a way where the critical mass of iOS was there to make this happen and last (at least for a bit).

Still, I can’t see the big crime Apple supposedly committed here. Their approach of building on top of SMS is completely valid and makes tons of sense.

Yeah there are obviously iPhones in Europe but they all have WhatsApp on them.

iMessage defaults to SMS on Android- and SMS is legacy technology in Europe. Thats what stopped iMessage gaining traction.

That’s easy. SMS cost money in Europe so as soon as an alternative emerged people switched to messengers. In the US unlimited texts were included in cell packages way earlier so people were ok with using them and iMessage worked as a logical extension.

Thank you, couldn’t have put it better myself. It’s obvious the parent comment has been left out of group chats...

When you add 1 phone number to a groupchat and now you can’t: Name the group Kick someone out Mute the group at night Send attachments at not potato resolution

Yeah it leads to some resentment

OP didn't comment on that it's "just" about the color of the message bubbles. The color actually does matter to teens as it's seen as a status symbol, that's a non-practical reason to hate or bully someone about. And because iMessage is sort of seem as a de-facto chat app, it truly does create unequal situations.

Think about it like this. You're low/middle class but your kid goes to a school where almost literally everyone else comes from a millionaire family. All the other kids play golf or some other expensive hobby. You're either forced to start paying for that as well or risk the fact that your kid will most likely be left out and ostracized by the rest.

If you _chose_ to send your kid to that school and it had nothing to do with education standards or prestige of being at a "better" school, then you effectively chose to bear the extra costs associated with it, but if your kid just goes to that school because it's their only real option, would you think it fair?

Yeah, because whatsapp is any better? I prefer the kids sharing their nudes over iMessage then whatsapp ( which is facebook, for the parents that dont know yet )

It's cross-platform and e2e encrypted so yeah, it's better.

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