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Comment by hoorayimhelping | Hacker News Reader

Nobody cares that you and your crew are using a WhatsApp alternative, which is why there's no option for you to signal that you're using an alternative. This is for people who want to switch and are looking for suggestions, not for people who are trying to show off that they don't need to switch.

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I wouldn't say we're using a WhatsApp alternative, I'd say we never bothered switching to a Signal alternative (which still seems like useful information to someone looking to switch away from WhatsApp).

Sorry that I seem to offended you. That certainly wasn't my intent.

I find it interesting to that people don't use WhatsApp at all. Many posts here are claiming not using WhatsApp is impossible. Grandparent's experience demonstrate that it is.

It depends on the country you're in and what country your extended family is in. Whatsapp absolutely dominates in South Asia and South America. You can see a full map here: https://www.messengerpeople.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/07/s...

Most Americans, for example, have no need for it. I feel like iMessage is the dominant messaging platform in the U.S.

That's an unbelievably poorly colored map -- 3 subtly different shades of green, 3 subtly different shades of blue. It's almost as though a colorblind designer set out to make everyone else suffer.

iMessage is iOS right? because the link you post shows facebook messenger is strongest in the US.

> "Based on Google Play Store rank"

That diagram is for Android only, so I wouldn't read too much into it.

This heavily depends on country of residence. While I had been living in Serbia, there was one king - Viber. I've heard of WhatsApp back then but didn't know a single person using it. In Germany it's vice versa - the king is WhatsApp, nobody heard of Viber.

It's not that surprising. If you live in the US and don't need to text people in other countries, you probably can avoid WhatsApp pretty easily, but it's pretty much the defacto option for texting non-US family and friends, and in many countries it's the predominant form of mass communication.

I communicate with a number of non-US folks routinely, and have still never needed WhatsApp. They're all in Europe though, so perhaps that's why.

Whatsapp is king in most of Europe

UK here, have never and will never use any fcbook property and didn't use Whatsapp before then. For me it's Signal, Matrix or folk can SMS me to give up their privacy without pushing me into using other services to do so.

That's a choice you can make. I have relatives that I would be cutting off if I do that.

I'm 41 and I have heard of whatsapp but I have never used it. Never heard of anyone else (that I know) using it. just anecdata for you.

Edit: US - sorry I was just catching up on the rest of this giant thread and it looks like SE Asia S America are the main usage places.

Add Western Europe, Turkey, the Middle East, Africa and India to that list. Heck, OPEC negotiates deals over WhatsApp.

Where do you live, not much data without that as a minimum.

I have a dedicated device for wechat. I recently put whatsapp on it (with a burner phone number) because my parents refuse to use anything else and would attempt to reach me via nearby people who happen to have whatsapp. I will likely remove it again rather when it forces me to "consent" to data sharing. I am extremely uncomfortable with whatsapp, much more so than wechat even.

Canada here, have used WhatsApp perhaps 5 times, all just to communicate with small teams at events. Always uninstalled it right after and honestly have never A. missed it, or B. been asked why I'm not using it.

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