WhatsApp had a major disruption
metastatus.com
metastatus.com
It's infuriating because nobody will consider any other messaging app. My phone's carrier also gives everyone several free GBs of WhatsApp data per month.
Meta is surely compensating them in some form
My understanding is the carriers wanted to run these deals because they attract customers who often convert to full internet plans. Messaging is nice, but customers eventually get outside links and want to experience the web or other applications.
Post acquisition, deals moved into Facebook's mobile partner portal, and afaik, there was still no compensation for WhatsApp deals, but the MPP does also offer analytics (audience insights) to carriers, and I'm not sure if it's a requirement to have a special pricing deal to get that or not.
It's been several years, so it's possible the program has changed.
[1] If you've seen that on planes, it wasn't authorized when I was there, and I don't think it's authorized now, but it doesn't stop a motivated network from providing the service.
Woah. I knew there were still places that charged for or metered SMS use, but I had no idea that the restrictions were that severe.
Funnily enough the volume of scam calls and txt that I receive via WhatsApp is why I have it disabled.
The only reason I ever use it is because we sometimes need cross platform group messaging to organise plans with other families or school groups, then I delete the app again
EDIT: out of curiosity, which country are you in?
Quite shocking, yes. SMS used to be free in the early 90s until the providers figured out that they can charge for it. They priced the 140 byte transmission at 0.20 CHF in Switzerland, and in some plans you still pay 0.20 CHF for 140 bytes over SMS, while you can get unlimited data.
Whatsapp rose because carriers didn't count any whatsapp payload towards your metered bill. Basically, Whatsapp was virtually free-of-charge whereas any other messaging app/system (SMS included) incurs towards your data cap.
At least that's what happened (And still happens) in Mexico.
The alternative to that is the on-premise solution.
IIRC there was a major down just before they added calls. Maybe I'll check up later the dates
Most people either don't care or everyone around them only uses WhatsApp for chat making it difficult to switch.
Maybe the 'other' people you know also just use it the same way you do, for that one international friend.
Whatsapp usage is quite prevalent in SF.
Of course, as I said.
> Maybe the 'other' people you know also just use it the same way you do
I'm confused about what you're responding to here. What other people? I didn't mention anyone else. That one friend happens to be the only person I know who uses it. Or at least the only person I know who has asked me to use it.
I didn't assert that nobody else uses it. In fact, I was providing an example that not everyone has abandoned it.
It's theoretically possible to improve on that, by e.g. providing a way to double-check all client-to-server communication, but that's extremely difficult to do without at the same time weakening the encryption (since it requires either deterministic encryption and/or leaking keys via a debugging interface). I believe Threema has done something like that at some point.
Telegram however wouldn't even need to, since practically all messages are already available to them server side.