Sms is mostly for when you want to add urgency and be less likely to be muted.
I would love to get rid of WhatsApp due to FB and hope to do so somehow soon.
(except that there's no exception; it's all whatsapp)
That assumption even extends to the business environments I work in. I'm often in the position of needing to coordinate with groups of customers, third parties and contractors during a change window. WhatsApp is the lowest common denominator
Until recently, one friend group was on Facebook Messenger, but only because one guy was a WhatsApp holdout who eventually gave in.
I don't know anyone who uses iMessage, but then i have an Android phone. Maybe they're all having cool and sexy group chats on that without me.
In Dubai almost half my bank correspondence has been on WhatsApp. Guy asks me which credit card I want and starts sending me snapshots of a printed brochure.
Advertisements have WhatsApp contact information listed, most businesses has a chat line open in WhatsApp. Delivery drivers will text you on WhatsApp if they have trouble finding your place. It’s really everywhere and that is despite the fact that phone calls on WhatsApp are blocked.
But it’s not like people aren’t on Facebook or nobody snaps or anything.
And of course, in China it’s WeChat, Japan and Taiwan it’s Line and I think South Korea still live and breathe through kakaotalk.
But for the majority of the world WhatsApp is really the first line of contact.
AFAIK it’s sending it over the Internet, but not over the web ;)
If it annoys you, you can disable it easily in your devices’ settings. Personally I don’t care much, and iMessages instead of SMS is convenient for mates in the US or Australia.
As a reminder: most cell phone plans here include unlimited (free) SMS messages
In the UK, I've had WhatsApp for about 12 years since the Nokia N900. If someone gives me their number, it's assumed we will communicate by WhatsApp.
As an interesting crossover, my American friends communicate with their friends/family in the US with iMessage but use WhatsApp for everything else and the only Brit I've met who used iMessage by default had spent significant time in the US in recent years.
Especially poorer countries use it a lot.
It really comes down to network effects - the app that got popular first tends to stay.
Germany trying to ban telegram is new to me tho, sucks how stupid old people are trying to understand the modern world ...
It’s kind of difficult if we want to mandate backdoors at the same time. That’s not against Germany specifically; most European governments seem to be under that delusion. Well, those who need to look like they care about privacy anyway; the others don’t care about the “data protection friendly” aspect.