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Comment by annzabelle | Hacker News Reader

Nearly everybody uses it in the USA. It's very common to text people through the default messaging app on your phone there (probably an outgrowth of the popularity of iPhones and iMessage), and backup options would be Instagram, Snapchat for a certain demographic, or Facebook messages. Whatsapp is only for messaging foreigners, and Signal/Telegram are for messaging your drug dealer.

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Yep, I have never used anything other than the stock messaging app that came with the phone. Whether that's SMS, iMessage, or whatever has never crossed my mind

I was really disappointed when Signal went away from being used as an "everything" messenger, including regular SMS. I onboarded all my family and now because it's not a default messenger, nobody is using it.

But that's the same situation as WhatsApp, and everyone uses WhatsApp.

Give them 2 channels, be clear about your terms of service and that your intent is to become exclusively available on Signal after one year:

- Signal. high priority channel, checked daily

- $PrivacyHazardApp. low prio, checked with steadily increasing intervals.

Make sure you communicate those intervals in advance, have them in the footer of every message you sent on $PrivacyHazardApp. Average Joe needs lots of patience and lots of education.

TIL. My deepest condolences. I thought that we, from this side of the pond, were upholding the honor of being the dumbest with our Whatsapp subjugation, but alas.

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