In my experience telling people that you prefer a different medium from whatsapp is not a big deal.
Some people will understand why you don't have Facebook, but not having WhatsApp is downright mad. Specially if you work with technology.
The only people I know that don't have it are luddites or very old people, and even they are far and few between.
I don't have it and no one I interact with at work had asked for my WhatsApp. I work in tech but NOT in the SV bubble. Everyone I know uses Google Hangouts.
Messenger apps have always been regional, back in high school everyone I knew used MSN Messenger while people I knew from my old hometown were all on AIM.
tl;dr: there are a lot of countries/language regions where Whatsapp is the absolutely dominant messenger.
I think you mean especially. And no its not uncommon to not have or use Whatsapp. Nobody on my current team uses it and nobody on my last one did either. We use IRC and Slack and that is enough. And none of us are Luddites or old people.
As it's been said before, it's very geographically dependent. In here, there isn't a local shop or service that doesn't advertise its WhatsApp number. Even the city hall's ombudsman answers via WhatsApp. Not email, not phone.
I'd love to be able to communicate through open protocols such as IRC and email alone. But that's not the world I, and I would wager, most, live in.
I will double check, but I think the setup and configuration is already complete for most people's phones, so no additional install needed.
edit: to clarify I mean I should join the opt-out side to help stop it from becoming socially unacceptable
It is perfectly possible not to use them (I don't), but it is not without downsides.
Either way, it's time to switch banks. And it's a good thing that you told me about it, as in Romania we also have ING and was considering then for my business account.
Not even remotely. I realize that WhatsApp is a big thing, but I've never even used it or have anyone in my circle who uses it. And I work in the tech industry.
Do people really feel social pressure to use a specific app?
I can't deduce from your profile where you are from, but can people stop extrapolating the situation in the US to the rest of the world? There are many countries where is Whatsapp is far more popular than SMS or any other messenger, country-wide.
There are workarounds but they're not as painless as simply deciding to 'use an alternative chat alternative'. It's like saying you don't like English? Well try esperanto and good luck functioning in the US. I've given some extremely exaggerated examples, particularly this last one haha, but I've found reliance on Whatsapp to be substantial and on the rise.
I do agree by the way that this isn't that big a deal. I'm completely fine to continue using them, but if I wasn't the proposed 'just stop using them, there's chat alternatives' really doesn't fly. It'd be really shitty.