These assertions need those quotes around 'nobody' because I work with a bunch of apple device owners across Europe and they certainly do use Apple messages.

At scale yes, signal, telegram and whatsapp are perhaps more significant than the apple ecology and the ratio of android to apple outside the USA and canada probably shows why.

Yes, I'm sure that there is at least one person who uses iMessage in all of Europe.

10 if you count my family, parents and siblings ;)

I know some that use it in Portugal, but most of my relatives use Facebook Messenger first, then WhatsApp, then SMS or iMessage.

Is anyone aware of actual statistics on this?

Beeper had a good approximation

It’s surprisingly difficult to measure.

“Installs” are muddied by the fact that everyone with a Facebook account has a Messenger capability, and every Apple user has an iMessage app downloaded.

“Messages received” is distorted by group chat dynamics and commercial messages.

“Messages sent” is distorted by the unequal value of relationships.

For example, I generally communicate with FB marketplace sellers & acquaintances from high school on Messenger, but use WhatsApp for talking with overseas family members.

More generally, there are social dynamics which make messenger apps radically different from one another. Even when the feature sets of the applications are very similar.

I'm aware almost no one uses iMessage in Europe. Most would choose WhatsApp in Europe. And if we had the choice most would choose iMessage in the US.

But it gives normal users a choice if they want it. Maybe it would get some to think oh maybe I should try Signal. That's how some people found out about Firefox - unimaginable I know.

But Whatsapp's popularity on iOS already shows that "normal" (whatever that means) users already have a choice. The market is not being constrained by Apple.

Not by Apple anyway. But it'll save them having to search WhatsApp :)

WhatsApp and Telegram (varies by country)

Your view is clearly not representative for the whole of EU.

Most of my family, friends and colleagues are on iMessage. I often need to explain why facetime will not work.

Whatsapp is also common, but different as it does not as easily replace SMS.

I mean, if everyone is using Whatsapp, that is effectively a monopoly. I am curious as to what the runner ups are in the EU however.

Meanwhile, wait until Mr. Zuckerberg looks for new ideas to monetize their messaging ecosystem.

Both Telegram and Signal. Threema is a distant 3rd ime.

There's no monopoly. Messengers hardly have any lock-in and there's plenty of competition available. Entire continents will switch messengers essentially overnight once the current market leader becomes too enshittified and there's something better. Remember how AOL, ICQ, MSN, Skype, etc. died?

WhatsApp is the current leader because it's no-nonsense and works everywhere. The moment Facebook fucks that up even a little bit, people will have moved on to the next thing.

There is major lock-in. If I want to move Signal but everybody I message uses WhatsApp then I can't message them unless they switch.

I can use multiple messengers in parallel without issue, as I did each time in those transitional periods.

The last messages on a dying messenger are always instructions on how to move on to the next thing. In skype, my status and most recent messages are just informing people of my discord handle. I accept that I may not be the norm, because generally I don't reach out to people and don't initiate contact, meaning that the onus is on them to use the appropriate channel to reach me.

Maybe it's worse for people who voluntarily stay in contact with many others using different messengers, but I don't see the problem with just having multiple messaging apps, especially since modern phones just consolidate all messaging services's contacts into your contacts app (at least on Android). You don't even need to remember who is reachable where.

>Maybe it's worse for people who voluntarily stay in contact with many others using different messengers

This is the problem I was expressing. If I want to contact Joe I have to use Signal, if I want to contact Sarah it is WhatsApp. Sam is SMS. Its hard to remember who is using which app.

> but I don't see the problem with just having multiple messaging apps, especially since modern phones just consolidate all messaging services's contacts into your contacts app (at least on Android). You don't even need to remember who is reachable where.

That is easy enough if you use the contacts app. I usually go straight to the app I want. Regardless, it doesn't solve the core problem because people use multiple apps. How am I supposed to remember which app they prefer? I could message them on their non-prefered app, but I don't like doing that if I can avoid it.

What do you think why suckerberg didn't done that until now? Facebook knows exactly that they need to be extremely cautiones to don't lose all their users to threema, signal or telegram.

Thats the reason why until now they only added non intrusive monetizing ideas than company accounts and so on. And when you ask me, they found a way to make whatsapp better. I can now order sushi via whatsapp. Here in Germany I know no other messenger that makes this possile.

God I really wish we Americans would get on whatsapp

No thanks, iMessage is much better and not owned by Facebook.

My sense is that zeitgeist has shifted on this in the last year no?

In what way?

How is iMessage better? WhatsApp is a great app.

Apple's business model is predicated on me buying things from them.

Facebook's business model is predicated on being able to sell access to me to third parties.

I can control the first one directly.

That is not related to how the app works though

Damn Straight.

It's owned by Apple. Thats not better. Same shit, other asshole.

So I can give my data to Meta? No thanks.

It felt like most of the US was on whatsapp and then everyone moved to signal and telegram

I don't consider any of these as a viable option.

Why? What is so great about it? It seems practically identical to signal and, if everyone is already on iOS, strictly worse than iMessage.

Runs on android, windows, web, macOS, iOS.

So does signal.

Sure, and telegram does too. I was responding to someone talking about iMessage

I can’t really tell the difference between signal telegram teams discord et al.

But messages falls back to sms and that I can notice.

I can't find a web client?

Guess you’re right.

Tried it in the early days where Whatsapp was buyed by facebook. Signal lost messages in group chats, Signal lost messages in normal chats.

Thats was the way to my blacklist. Droped Signal caused by unreliability.

Additionally, same as now iMessage, close out of other clients. Other asshole, same shit.

> Tried it in the early days where Whatsapp was buyed by facebook.

Wasn't that in 2014, so literally 9 years ago? Things are pretty different now.

Signal group chats are shit by comparison.

British-American here. WhatsApp is very good despite its owners. Way better than anything else which is why we continue to use it for group chats.

There’s no other good group chat encrypted option for both iPhone and Android.

I've been using Signal since it was Text Secure and Red Phone. I've got most of my friend group switched over to it

I really don't want to give meta any of my business.

Every person I interact with in the EU uses iMessage. Let’s avoid making sweeping generalizations.

That's a pretty sweeping generalisation on it's own. You personally interacting via iMessage with people in the EU has absolutely no bearing on this. When people say that 'no-one' uses iMessage, they are really saying saying that it's a very small percentage. It's like saying 'no-one uses Yahoo! mail' - relative to GMail and Outlook.com, it's use is vanisingly small these days, but I guaruntee that there is a not-insignificant number of mail originating from Yahoo domains.

It’s an anecdote just like yours.