I find that whatever number I call from the "local craiglist" where people sell items, I find them on whatsapp.
Nearby "home depot" accepts orders over whatsapp. I can even send pics for what I want!
Kindergarden - all parents and teachers form a group and communicate there, ask questions, make announcements. Teachers may share pictures what kids are doing.
School classrooms form groups.
...
SMS unfortunately cannot share pics and videos, and location which is sometimes handy and cannot form groups.
So getting out of whatsapp is, well... big inconvenience. No one has even invited me to Signal.
Same here in Wales. We are in the insane situation where local taxpayer-funded bodies such as schools compel people to use foreign, tax-evading commercial services in order to fully participate.
>SMS unfortunately cannot share pics and videos, and location
MMS can. Not only that but it is only old people that use these things according to the younger people I know. Just today I read an article about emojis: It's only for old people. Matches my experience perfectly. These chatsnsill soon die out and be replaced by something different.
[1]: https://silence.im/
edit:
F-droid: https://f-droid.org/packages/org.smssecure.smssecure
Play: https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=org.smssecure....
I'm not a Signal user though after giving them several tries, and that decision seems more final by each passing days. I find I disagree too much with how their leadership and organization have behaved in relation to other projects and the direction they continue to take Signal.
Each to their own though.
Also here for F-droid users: https://f-droid.org/packages/org.smssecure.smssecure
I get the feeling from your comment that you are proud of the fact many in India use these awful apps. It's not something to be proud of. You are paying with your privacy and in India that can cause you harm a lot easier than in Denmark.
I don't know anything about the source, but on the bottom left I can see it says "Source: Facebook internal [something]". Various other searches corroborate similar numbers. There are about 80 Million people in Germany, so this is substantial.
It also matches my (anecdotical, yes) experience of pretty much all my friends and family in Germany using WhatsApp, and me having done so as well before I moved to the US. I remember the impetus being that at that time (long before they were acquired by Facebook), SMS were expensive in Germany, but WhatsApp over data was (effectively) "free". I believe this to be the main reason why WhatsApp took hold in many countries, while it didn't so much in others (e.g. the US, where I think individual SMS were always free, but not sure).
Nowadays, some of my folks in Germany at least use Signal or iMessage.
I still pay $0.15 per sms. Ok i'm on a prepaid plan but still, that's ridiculous. And my separate (very slow, but more than good enough for HN, voip etc.) mobile internet only sim is $4/month. Of of course with signal that is effectively almost a flatrate for all calls and texts.
Many I know have basically zero data in their plan as they don't need it for anything so there's no way WhatsApp or FB messenger can be cheaper than SMS. I think the price with only 1gb data and free SMS/MMS is something like $6.
I can't see a single thing WhatsApp or Facebook messenger can do for me that signal can't do better because I simply don't need SoMe on my phone. I need encrypted SMS. Anything more than that is worse than what I already got.
To paraphrase someone young from my family: "Facebook is for old people". So is WhatsApp and Facebook messenger. But of course it's just an anecdote that covers 100% of the people I happen to know. So from my bubble I don't believe for a second that they have a future. Signal might. As encrypted SMS but not otherwise.