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> They never did catch up on table stakes

What didn't they catch up on? To me Messenger seems like a better user experience than WhatsApp or any of the other three messaging clients I need to use.

Indeed WhatsApp is lacking basic functionality like a desktop app. Also, a client tied to a phone number may work well for some people, but a pain whenever you change your number, and it makes discovery of people much harder.

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WhatsApp has had a desktop app for years.

Does my phone need to be on/connected to the internet for it to work? That's always been the weird thing for me about Whatsapp, is that your phone seems to be the "server" for the app.

They fixed that fairly recently.

Since a few weeks/months ago, no. Before that yes.

Except now it won't sync older messages and sometimes messages only get delivered to your phone but not the desktop. They took a decade to roll out a desktop app and even then it's a mess. WhatsApp has been degrading under Meta's ownership.

The old website/app was very primitive. Only this year did multi device linking come out of beta.

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