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Comment by dguest | Hacker News Reader

I've traveled to a few places where it's impossible to buy a data plan that doesn't include free unlimited WhatsApp messages. I don't really know why this was true, but it made using any other messaging app a non-starter.

My assumption was that Meta was lobbying companies to bundle free WhatsApp data to increase their user base, but I'm not finding any proof. Does anyone else have an explanation?

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It is the other way around. Clients use it so much that they began offering those plans. I'm from Brazil and I saw the change from SMS to WhatsApp happen. Today, several small business rely on WhatsApp for orders and general communication. When the service went off last year, it was quite chaotic.

Even as far back as late 00s, facebook was paying local cell phone companies in my country to allow customers to access mobile facebook for free without any data package at all.

Nothing too surprising or nefarious about it. Unlimited WhatsApp is the equivalent to unlimited SMS in similar bundles in the past. Carriers offer it to attract customers.

I don't think it's particularly surprising or nefarious for WhatsApp to be paying carriers to become the default messaging client. That's just good business (unless you want to bring things like net neutrality into it).

The reason some exchange / sponsorship seems likely is that there's no option without WhatsApp. If you're a carrier, a GB WhatsApp data is the same load on your system as a GB of Telegram data. What's the incentive to make the most popular part of your product free?

I think it's actually just something their customers like.

I assume it can be both: every customer likes free things, and WhatsApp likes having more customers. The existence of Free Basics isn't exactly news, but not all countries that have free WhatsApp have Free Basics.

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