This.
There is no way to socially untangle yourself from Whatsapp in the Netherlands, unless one wishes to live as the modern version of a hermit.
There is no way to socially untangle yourself from Whatsapp in the Netherlands, unless one wishes to live as the modern version of a hermit.
The crucial difference is that in my life everyone is on WhatsApp, and no one is on any of the other IMs. That is the difference.
And I don't use the word everyone here lightly, I mean it (99,9%) literally. My family, my parents, my friends, my colleagues, my 91 year old grandmother, my potential clients, my actual clients, the support line for the webshop I order from, the support line for my supermarket, etc... Everyone.
I can't speak for other countries, but in the Netherlands WhatsApp is undeniably a part of your social infrastructure.
It doesn't matter if any of those other IMs have feature parity, better security or stricter privacy. There's just no one to message.