This features genuinely adds to the user experience and its nice to have a way of sharing statuses with most if not all of my contact list as opposed to a select few that use snap chat.
My only gripe is the privacy concerns, I can't help but feel Facebook will combine all data one day and most worryingly in retrospect.
This feature is now in TWO Facebook owned apps (WhatsApp + Instagram) and I recently read that they're also bringing it to Facebook (currently testing with some users). So now I have three identical products from the same company. It doesn't make sense to update the story in each app. Some friends will update one over the other and now I have three stories to check. That's the opposite of adding to the user experience in my opinion. Give them a bit more time and I'll have three identical Facebook apps just with different icons on my phone.
* Group MMS messages are a nightmare so people in my demographic often use GroupMe to facilitate them
* I'm not even sure if attaching images and other media on MMS messages is supposed to work consistently. I usually end up with an image that has been severely degraded in quality
* No read notifications, which can be useful if you goose to enable them on WhatsApp, Signal, etc.
* Poor security, I would assume that SMS is far easier for law enforcement to illegally bug
* Conversing with people who are in different countries as SMS typically invokes outrageous charges, and my mobile provider includes 2G data in most countries
* Can't use SMS on a computer unless through something like Google Voice, which isn't a pure SMS solution
* Message history backups are much better documented on WhatsApp/Signal, so that I've never bothered to figure out how to restore SMS history after I get a new phone or install a new ROM on my phone (Android)
* Free international communication
* Read/typing receipts
* Faster and more reliable
* Sending of media
* Group chats that actually work
* Seamless usage across desktop/mobile
Going back to SMS is like going back to the dark ages after getting used to a proper web-based chat client. As far as I can tell pretty much the only place where technical users still use SMS is the US.
This isn't true for Whatsapp and was my main technical reason for leaving Whatsapp for Telegram.
(I have another post in this thread that explains my reasoning WRT security.)
but my family is stubborn like myself and refuse to change.
Practical advice or anyone who decides to try:
- recommend it to friends at your age first.
- emphasize ease of use, not security (also I wouldn't even feel comfortable telling people that Telegram is more secure)
- both can be used free of charge so I am fine with communicating with my stubborn siblings on Whatsapp and everyone else on other platforms.
/jk
- Paying for domestic text messages
- Paying for international text messages
- Being able to add / remove participants from a conversation
- Paying for roaming charges (SMS v.s. chat app over wifi)
I think this could be the beginning of the end for Whatsapp's ubiquity. It's such a shame as Whatsapp has such insane market penetration here (UK/Spain) that it is going to be a huge mess to try to switch to an alternative. I literally haven't received an SMS from a friend in years.