WhatsApp became an unstoppable cultural force

Re:WhatsApp became an unstoppable cultural force by crop_rotation on Saturday December 14, 2024 @03:56PM (#42419379)

Whatsapp is such a big cultural force that many of my non technical friends and family members refuse to use anything else. No mail for full res photos is one thing, but you can't make them use anything else. Everything lives in Whatsapp. Todos, notes, reminders, sharing stuff (airdrop is the only exception if everyone involved has iOS). It is less because of whatsapp features (Nobody uses any features like payments), and more because of the simplicity and ease of use.

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Re:WhatsApp became an unstoppable cultural force by titanomachy on Saturday December 14, 2024 @04:07PM (#42419444)

I didn’t even know it could do things other than send messages. How do they do all that other stuff? Bots? Plain text chats?

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Re:WhatsApp became an unstoppable cultural force by crop_rotation on Saturday December 14, 2024 @04:12PM (#42419487)

Plain text chats only, pinned chats for todos. Named empty groups for notes. The fact that Whatsapp has no features is a plus for such users as they find doing whatever they want very simple.

The above are just two examples but people really do almost everything within Whatsapp without using any special features.

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Re:WhatsApp became an unstoppable cultural force by RustySpottedCat on Saturday December 14, 2024 @04:01PM (#42419406)

Uuh, where do you live? I haven't met a single person (technical or non technical) with such an attachment to a single app in my life.

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Re:WhatsApp became an unstoppable cultural force by bryant on Saturday December 14, 2024 @04:03PM (#42419425)

There are many examples all over the world. Plenty of countries have people that have attachments to apps like whatsapp, telegram, etc.

All of my friends in brazil, for instance, are entirely attached to whatsapp.

I agree with the other reply. Where do you live? I'm surprised that you haven't encountered any. Every city in the US that I visited and every city that I visited internationally has people that attach themselves to one of either whatsapp, telegram, imessage, etc.

(I'm kind of excluding wechat here because wechat seems to be forced, but there are plenty of people who have this attachment to wechat as well because of its status as an omni app)

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Re:WhatsApp became an unstoppable cultural force by Kiro on Saturday December 14, 2024 @04:02PM (#42419419)

The question is where you live where this is not the case. You're the outlier here.

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Re:WhatsApp became an unstoppable cultural force by nemomarx on Saturday December 14, 2024 @04:05PM (#42419432)

I think it's not as prominent as this in the US - probably because the equivalent is Apple messaging systems, if your family / friend group is all in that?

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Re:WhatsApp became an unstoppable cultural force by crop_rotation on Saturday December 14, 2024 @04:13PM (#42419496)

Yes the US is one of the only rare places where Whatsapp is not omnipresent (and it is the only presence where RCS has any meaningful chance of ever being used.

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