i.e. i don't want to be an electrical engineer to be able to operate a light switch. i don't care about the certifications of the cabling or the switch or in which way the electrons were produced - i want the lights on.
Hell how to get WhatsApp profitable seems to befuddle Facebook.
Facebook, the company that never charges for anything and makes money off data and ads? You are thinking you never paid for WhatsApp after using it for a decade?
WhatsApp is definitely losing them money, but it's obviously more than worth a small loss to have control over the messaging system that most of the world uses. Facebook doesn't want Google or whoever to get a popular social app and leverage that to move into spaces that Facebook actually makes money.
So I guess in a sense you could way we're indirectly paying for it via Facebook ads (if you actually use Facebook).
Unless you think that FB won't start serving you mortgage ads once they see you calling realtors
No idea about MMS my country shut that service off years ago and I never used it.
Announcement of changing from upfront paid to subscription: https://blog.whatsapp.com/i-phone-v2-10-1-release-notes
Announcement of removing the subscription altogether: https://blog.whatsapp.com/making-whats-app-free-and-more-use...
You gave up your privacy, which is worth a lot more than a few cents.
I did too, unfortunately. There's no way most people can be convinced to use anything else than the tool that connects them with the highest number of users, so when I had to install something on a old tablet to plan rehearsals with my old band I had no other choice than Whatsapp.
Not to me. So I really didn't give up anything.
The dependence on supporting extensions to get features like push messaging from servers to work efficiently was a problem.
https://www.npr.org/2022/06/10/1103463809/why-eating-at-your...
When I went into an office, I would sometimes grab lunch at my desk if I just wanted some calories and wrap up my day as quickly as possible. Otherwise I'd eat with people in the cafeteria or go out (options for both of which varied a lot by job).
Also, when no one else is in the office, I sometimes like eating at my desk because I can eat by myself instead of having to deal with noisy people at the other tables.
Plus the office reeks of food, ketchup on your keyboard, unhygenic. You can eat wherewer you want, just not in the office. You can eat in the park. The thing is, one also gets to disconnect from work, walk away from the desk and maintain a proper work life balance. Some French individuals also use the lunch break to exercise.
I don't live in France but we use the meeting room to eat, instead of eating at our desks. We properly vent it afterwards, of course.
Most employers have at least a dedicated room for eat your own food, with some basic equipment. In practice the law is more about what employers must provide in terms of amenities and time off to eat.
Admittedly, I couldn't even tell you what I pay--if anything--in non-iMessage texts these days on a bog-standard AT&T plan but it's not something enough to take note of and I don't take the color into any account when texting.
I do remember international texting costs driving adoption of WhatsApp though. It was a killer app that everyone knew how to instantly use, not have spam, and the contacts/pics/video/group sharing just worked across all phone OSs.
Edit: In fact, the exact opposite is what I think happened. Texting was unlimited in the US, or effectively unlimited because it was so cheap, that people in the US did not bother to look into a non default SMS/MMS apps to message others, since Americans are mostly contacting other Americans.
All the people I knew who had international contacts jumped on WhatsApp, but a huge portion of Americans never contact anyone outside America, so they never cared about international messaging costs, and never bothered with WhatsApp/Viber/Tango/Skype/whatever other chat app was out there to bypass text costs.
This gave Apple an advantage because they can implement their own iMessage in the default SMS/MMS app, and ramp people up onto iMessage without people even choosing it.
I communicate with Europeans in particular all the time. But those are via Gmail/Gchat or Twitter mostly.
No I don’t think this is accurate. I remember US cell providers charging for text message when iMessage was released. iMessage mattered to me initially, and I did use iMessage WiFi texting to avoid SMS charges and overages. Here’s an article from 2013 (two years after iMessage started) talking about telcos deciding to stop charging. https://www.computerworld.com/article/2486212/at-t--t-mobile... Don’t forget that at the time there was a big distinction between SMS and MMS (anything longer than 160 chars, anything with images, movies or audio, etc.
I have no doubt that WhatsApp, in addition to iMessage, contributed to the telcos realizing that charging for messaging was no longer a good idea. But messaging was not effectively unlimited before iMessage came around.
This link from Jul 2012 says ATT/Verizon were offering unlimited talk and text at that time:
https://www.wired.com/2012/07/att-shared-data-plan/
This link from Dec 2015 claims 90% of people had unlimited plans and they started being offered a few years ago:
>But in the last few years, “Unlimited Talk and Text” has become an increasingly common phrase.
https://instantcensus.com/blog/almost-90-of-americans-have-u...
I mean, WiFi texting was a selling point of iMessage for a reason. They made a big deal out of being able to send messages for free. From my perspective in the US, I wasn’t even aware of WhatsApp at the time, and so it felt like iMessage was the primary force causing telcos to back off. (That and the fact that charging for SMS was stupid because the cheaper alternatives used more bandwidth.) WhatsApp might have in reality been a larger force, but I’m skeptical because WhatsApp was an app you had to go get, while iMessage was the built-in default way to send text messages. IPhone user base in 2011 was more than 2x larger than WhatsApp user base at the same time.
Rest of the world is bemused by the stories of bullied US teenagers who don't have 'the right' bubble colour on their SMS-ish app. Elsewhere we've all been using whatsapp/telegram/signal etc for years and we're never going back.
I think maybe the worst decision Apple made was not trying to push out their service (with maybe a few limitations to upsell the hardware) - although I guess blackberry tried to do that and it didn't work out.
If they were first to market with an app for android and ios I feel like things might have gone very differently.
I mean, I wouldn't install any FB software on my phone. I'm not sure "we just use WhatsApp" is the flex you think it is.
But the "US teenagers bullied" is one of those BS stories that is blown out of proportion because in a country roughly the size of the EU, you can find a lot of idiots. And US news loves stories about how your children are in some kind of peril - often peer related.
They choose not to deliberately to tie people into iPhones.
Apple does do that.
They provide a toggle (defaults to off) not to fall back to SMS. Which makes sense as an option, because it would suck to send what you think is E2E encrypted and then find out it went in clear text.
Blackberry blew it by not trying to do that till blackberry was dead. then once the whole world had migrated to a different solution they brought out their messenger. Whatsapp at best was a clone of blackberry messenger.
The time to open up your standard is at the top, not after everyone is / has abandoned you for the "next thing".
Oh wait.
The internet enabled software to update every day, that made standards way less relevant, sadly.
The HTML5 model of standards is probably best for the modern world