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Comment by zer0zzz | Hacker News Reader

I’m not sure that’s true. I’m fairly certain UK, France, AU, Canada WhatsApp is not vastly more popular than the blue bubble alternative. At least I believe this was the case a few years ago, based on data I’d seen.

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France and UK, from personal experience, whatsapp is big, especially for professional use, or friends/family groups.

Blue bubble isn't really a thing ever mentioned in France either, not enough iPhone market share.

> Blue bubble isn't really a thing ever mentioned in France either, not enough iPhone market share.

Nobody uses iMessage. People with iPhone use WhatsApp too.

The user experience of iMessage used to be subpar and now everyone has WhatsApp installed anyway, the feature set is the same and it works on all phone brands so nobody feels like switching.

Same in the UK. The fact that iMessage only works for iOS devices means it's a complete non-starter. What's the point in using a messaging app if you can't add all your contacts to a group? And if you're using a different app for group chats for this reason, then why not use it for 1-1 messaging, too?

I'm in the UK, I don't even know what 'the blue bubble alternative' is (Signal? Telegram?), everyone's on WhatsApp.

I guess that it’s the iPhone’s messenger app? I heard that in that app, fellow iOS users have blue bubble messages and Android / other users have green bubble messages, and all the teens in the US /maybe Canada think it’s lame if you don’t have blue bubbles.

Oh. I remember hearing about that about 15y ago, didn't realise it was still a thing. I suppose because I haven't heard of anyone using iMessage for almost as long!

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