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Comment by armadsen | Hacker News Reader

I think this is only really true outside of the US. I only have WhatsApp installed because I've spent time outside the US (Africa, specifically) and it's defacto standard there. I literally never use it to talk to people in the US, nor do I know anyone else here who uses it.

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I'm well outside the US (Eastern Europe) and have never needed WhatsApp. I can talk with all the people I know over Google Hangouts or Facebook Messenger. Perhaps it's also an age thing? I guess the youngsters use WhatsApp.

Also from EE, now in central EU. Everyone uses WA and Telegram, nobody on SMS

How far east are you?

Oh I'm not very far East, actually I'm from Central Europe. The Brits kindly told me there was no such thing as Central Europe, just West/East, so I stick to saying that on the internet :)

I'm from the Czech Republic and often spend time Poland. No one I know forces me to use WA or Telegram, everyone's either on G Hangouts or FB messenger.

Oh wow! Hangouts! Big surprise tbh :)

Whatsapp is the number one app in most EU countries. It's not age but the fact youve clearly never socialized outside of your country (or with foreigners).

It's really interesting reading these comments. I'm in Australia, more of my friends use iphone (but it's close), nobody I know uses iMessage though, everyone uses WhatsApp. I had to go read about iMessage to understand the context here. Not a fan of Google but this stuff is not endearing me to apple at all.

Also in Australia, all my friends either use Facebook Messenger, Signal or Telegram, in descending order of popularity.

> It's not age but the fact youve clearly never socialized outside of your country (or with foreigners).

You couldn't be more wrong. I've lived in Czechia, Poland, the Netherlands, and the UK. I've played go competitively at a European level and have travelled a fair bit and socialized with nerds all over. Name a European country, chances are I know several people there.

Most people here have both FB messenger and WhatsApp (and likely Instagram), so if you have one of those you're fine. I've tried not to use /any/ facebook product for a while and that's when I ran into bubble color issues.

Indeed, I simply tell people I don't have WhatsApp and we usually end up with FB messenger. My claim was not that I don't know people who use WhatsApp (I do!) but rather that FB messenger + G Hangouts about covers everyone for me.

for reference, i'm in canada.

SMS/iMessage is always everybody's first choice for communication here, i wouldn't say whatsapp is the dominant communication platform or used for in-country communication on a regular basis, but everybody seems to always have it installed or if they don't have it installed they know about it and are willing to install it.

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