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Comment by jb1991 | Hacker News Reader

jb1991

> iMessage, Slack, Teams

These don’t really compete with WhatsApp, which is cross platform, not tied to an employer, doesn’t require an invitation, subscription, friend network, setup to use, among other things.

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Yet they can do so very easily at the flip of a button, so to speak. The capability exists, and simply because potential competitors choose to not compete in the same space is what makes WhatsApp a monopoly?

See Skype, for example - the largest market penetration for a period of time and practically no one uses them any more. They were video-centric, yet the user base is already there for an extension into a primarily text medium. Not tied to an employer, doesn't require an invitation, subscription, friend network, setup to use, etc...

Choosing not to compete can also be a sign of a monopoly. Why invest in a line of business that you know you’re going up against a behemoth?

And had they been able to, what do you think would’ve happened to Skype had it been acquired by Facebook back when it was the main game in town? I think that’s the point.

They would've had competition.

Whatsapp has other competitors currently. Telegram and Viber come readily to mind, and I am certain there are other services that I'm not aware of, the old fart that I am.

Whatsapp was incredibly popular in most of the underdeveloped world, where it became the de facto messaging app because of the low data requirements and ubiquitousness (and probable subsidies via the ISP provider). This was prior to FB buying them. Out of my group of contacts, the Telegram app notified me over the past year that roughly 2 dozen have signed up for it, e.g. That's another (albeit anecdotal) sign.

I understand the antagonism toward FB/Whatsapp/Instagram, given the consolidation of social networks within the purview of one entity, but not a single one of those services is a monopoly.

Could very well be I don't understand the intricacies of the law, and such consolidation is perhaps illegal for the betterment of society, but I'm not convinced that's the case still. Microsoft, for example, was accused of monopolistic behavior because they had enough power to pressure manufacturers to bundle IE with the OS. No such thing is happening in this situation. IANAL, but that's my simplistic take on it.

I stand to be corrected.

Instagram was not the "main game in town" when Facebook acquired them. It was one of many photo sharing/editing apps and had far less market penetration than it does today. Why should Facebook be punished for acquiring a promising app and turning it into what it is today by integrating it into its ecosystem?

Hindsight is 20/20 but at the time of acquisition it was far from a sure thing and it's safe to say that without Facebook resources Instagram would not be what it is today.

I remember when Instagram was acquired and it seemed like everybody was using them, they were getting mocked on the night TV and SNL, it certainly seems to me they had the primary mindshare and threat to the social media experience at the time.

Line, Viber, Telegram, Signal, Matrix etc etc.....there is so much competition in the messaging space.

Not to mention WeChat with 1.2B MAU.

WhatsApp is basically the norm outside of the US from what I can tell?

So yeah, there's really no "competition". Either you have whatsapp or you don't talk to people.

And it's highly used for cross-business communication in Europe, I can tell you that.

It seems its no competition because people like it not because there are no other options, because there are plenty

But my point is "it's the norm".

Either you use WhatsApp or you don't talk to people.

And I'm not saying this is a bad thing, really.. I think "monopolies" have their place in standardizing things that we do and it makes it convenient.

(Side note: if fucking Apple would open up iMessage on android/windows they would OWN the chat market in a matter of minutes in the US)

But there does get to a point where you cannot say "people use it because they like it". Most people use it solely because everyone else uses it.

Just like Facebook. There is no "alternative" for real-life profile social media. If you want to use that type of social media, Facebook is the only thing whether you like it or not.

Isnt that the case of network effects though ?

Facebook started off in a market with Orkut, Myspace, Friendster and along came Path, Twitter, Google+. Facebook had network effects and people gravitated towards it.

So this is basically saying network effect is bad. You cant get too popular.

Yes, it’s network effects. One company with a large accepted network acquires another company with a large accepted network to avoid competing with it, and creating an even larger behemoth with services that will dominate both arms of that industry.

That is where mandatory interoperability could help. We do not have insular e-mail systems that cannot communicate with one another. In case of IM, interoperability would go a long way towards reducing dominance of Facebook.

Splitting WA from Facebook isn’t going to change that though. It’s still going to look like WA is a monopoly, then what?

> WhatsApp is basically the norm outside of the US from what I can tell?

Which would mean that the lawsuit would fail. pretty much everything that happens outside of the USA is irrelevant for this lawsuit.

yeah would make more sense to break iMessage or force them to open APIs

No, they do compete with WhatsApp, on the basis of those points of differentiation.

Whatsapp has near universal market penetration globally, especially in countries where most people can’t afford iPhones and use iMessage.

Even in countries where iPhones are ubiquitous the cross-platform nature of Whatsapp and the fact that everyone from your friend to your grandmother is on it, makes it dominant.

Yes you could use Slack to message your friends like you would on Whatsapp. The experience won’t be the same, and setup will be a hurdle. But would you use Whatsapp to replace Slack at work?

I think the term “compete” is used very broadly here.

> Whatsapp has near universal market penetration globally, especially in countries where most people can’t afford iPhones and use iMessage.

do you have data to back up that claim?

Fair point, I should have provided some sort of link. See the graph showing Top Messaging Apps by Country. South America, Africa, Asia is mostly Whatsapp. If you combine FB Messenger and Whatsapp, then FB controls most of the messaging market share in most regions, with a few notable exceptions like WeChat in China.

And as an alternative source:

https://www.messengerpeople.com/global-messenger-usage-stati...

These numbers can't be correct as there is no mention of iMessage who's the biggest chat app in the usa.

From the second link it appears that iMessage is not counted because it is preinstalled on iPhones and is not cross platform:

"4. iMessage

Communication apps like WhatsApp are available on practically all devices, whereas native apps like Apple’s iMessage (and now Apple Business Chat) are limited to one provider.

However, the user base for iPhone is constantly growing in the USA. A lot of adolescents prefer iMessage to apps like Snapchat in order to reach out to their friends.

Since iMessage is a pre-installed service of Apple, there are no official messaging usage statistics as they keep those “in-house”. Looking at the ever-growing demand and distribution of iOS devices though, we can assume that the pool of iMessage users is growing. In the fiscal year of 2017, Apple reached a quantity of 216.76 million iPhones."

I have anectada... basically everyone in my contact list has whatsapp... even all the iphone users. Mostly for the group chats.

iMessage no worky for groups because you'd be excluding the Android users. Group SMS... I don't think anyone over here is even aware that's an option. I only know about it from Americans on HN saying they use it.

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