Why have they been so successful? Why didn't MMS 6.0 implement everything that exists in modern chat applications. Why is Meta anything more than the anonymous humble entities producing sms and "phone" apps?

I guess because Whatsapp provides a unified and standard way to communicate between people on different provider networks / countries for free? You get groups, text/images/location sharing, video/audio calls, cross-countries, that works very reliably, and you only need internet (which can be found almost anywhere even if that's just wifi).

MMS still don't work reliably for me (lost a message just last week that someone swear to have sent). And for a long time they were not free as well.

This is still where normal phones work better (no internet).

I'm not actually suggesting using MMS. I just wanted to illustrate that we've had instant communication technology (even "rich" multi-media) long before Whatsapp etc. Why didn't the providers of that technology (telecom companies) become Meta?

The difference is that MMS/SMS is standardized and agnostic to the client interface. While WhatsApp is proprietary and monopolizes the client.

We could easily have had a "internet direct message" standard implementing most of WhatsApps features. (Wait... Isn't that SMTP?)

Maybe I'm just ignorant, but what does WhatsApp bring that let's say email++ does not have?

Telcos hire vendors to run their networks and services. For them WhatsApp is yet another vendor.

It was a great and useful cross platform messaging app ... and still is after Meta bought it.

MMS has been exorbitantly, insanely expensive and with extremely high failure rates in much of the world until...

... actually that's still the case in varying degrees and locations. And once you've got great market penetration in an area, there's little to no reason to switch unless the competition is noticeably better, which MMS really has no claim to.

Point is: why did an open standard for direct messages not win over proprietary solutions?

They put in quite a lot of time and money to build it and make it work on a ridiculous array of devices running weird embedded OSes.

Open standards hadn't.

Or if you're referring to MMS: insane user cost and insane unreliability, standards mean nothing if the implementations are all trash.

But why didn't email win over WhatsApp? Doesn't email run on all devices?

Not saying it should have, just that I don't really see the difference in functionality.

Email definitely did not. When WhatsApp was beginning its rise to domination, it was on tons of feature phones - mostly just calls, texts, and WhatsApp. Email implies a lot more general internet access than was generally supported or understood by people, since it supports arbitrary data and hosts.

For example, try to get hold of taxi services in Africa without Whatsapp.

Where in Africa? People just use Uber or alternatives, and it works fine pretty much everywhere I've been (I'm Kenyan. I've lived in South Africa for extended periods, and travelled extensively in Namibia and Tanzania). I've never once heard of anyone using WhatsApp for cab hailing. It gets pretty exhausting finding people talking about a whole continent on HN in broad strokes as though it's some small town they once went to on holiday, and can now offer their expert opinion on.

As an Australian I sympathise, it's not all HN'rs [1] but there's certainly a strong core of proud ignorance confident in their assertaions about other cultures, countries, political systems, etc.

[1] https://www.explainxkcd.com/wiki/index.php/850:_World_Accord...

PS: I met a guy in Mali once, d'ya know them? [2] /s

[2] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BOValSt7YOY

Thanks for the recommendation You may also enjoy Tinariwen, if you haven't already come across them.

Cheers bigtime.

Here I was expecting something from Tanzania or Kenya and we're back in Northern Mali!

I'm a bit old - I travelled extensively about the globe when I was younger doing geophysicsl survey work and ground truthing the transition from many paper map systems to WGS84.

Africa has some fantastic musicians.

All I can offer in return is some Australians and their collaborations ...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JjDlbCfybbE

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sr3iI8gg2fo

English x Yolngu Matha x Bemba:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TrM8Ly17lw4

Why not:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BTmGpJJsQEU

Haha! I thought we were just trading desert blues today.

Here's some Kenyan fare for you, an odd mix of things:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2ig9DHit6K8 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Or2sMfOcTtw https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Tb0k0LuJFw8 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hlMw5uOFyaU https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b0Jwf-Y1uww

Tjamuku Ngurra is beautiful. I don't think I've listened to Aboriginal fusion (there's all sorts of interesting things happening there) before. My consumption of Australian music has mostly been limited to Tame Impala, whom I love, but this is special. Thank you so much for sharing.

There's some gorgeous music there, thank-you.

Australian music is surprisingly broad for such a small (population wise, physically it's the same land area as mainland USofA (and together the US + Australia are less than the area of Africa ..)) .. "aboriginal fusion" (that works) is also broader than many might imagine.

To barely scratch the surface:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xMqG_LyD9s4 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bdpoWcma4HE

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JLQ4by3lUJo https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aBAv36KM4rI

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=myKF9mxAJ70 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gw-AgvUEVm4

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e7XevQAVoBI https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-VMcnKM09w0

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kqfyHzL0G-o https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pHJFfSmnCnY

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hWibGemExd0

(I can go on forever here)

Meanwhile, 'back in Africa' (well, perhaps, out of Adrica)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UGomSuDPeSU

https://youtu.be/tvY31eN3gtE?t=38

In 2019 I can assure I was only able to get taxis in Tanzania via Whatsapp.

To be honest I never used Uber and never saw a taxi with stickers telling otherwise.

Likewise arranging trips with the local tourist agencies.

That may well be true for your one experience in Tanzania. I wasn't there with you. I have neither a reason, nor the desire to counter your personal experience.

Here's what I find baffling. You had a single, curated, extremely limited travel experience, in (I'm guessing) a handful of places, in one country, over a limited time period. You extrapolated from that experience to making a bold, sweeping claim about an odd 1.2 billion people living in 54 countries. And with an air of worldly confidence, to boot. What you said of Africa is not even generally true of the city of Dar es Salaam, let alone all of Tanzania. How could it possibly be true for a whole continent? I'm genuinely in awe of both the audacity it takes to make such a claim, and the thought process that leads to it. I do feel a bit bad for singling you out (but only a little bad) since it's sadly not unusual for people to choose to talk about places in this way when they don't expect to be challenged.

If it makes you feel any better, people also do the same sort of inaccurate cultural reductivism about the United States -- a vast geographical area containing many strongly differentiated local regional cultures -- on a daily basis.

It does, actually Quite unexpectedly, too. I have an American friend who keeps recommending places I should visit in the States, but I always respond by saying I don't want to get shot or racially profiled. It's a source of constant frustration for him. I did not expect HN to be where I'd find empathy for his perspective.