There is a reason they paid so much for it. In a lot of the world, they’re essentially required.

And next to impossible to get rid of. I would much rather use Signal but convincing even privacy-conscious people to switch is an uphill battle.

I find a lot of people (including myself) had a pretty bad experience with Signal years ago, and it has put them off using it today.

Signal is quite good these days for what it is worth. My whole family switched and hasn’t missed whatsapp. That said I am still stuck on whatsapp, it is basically the only messaging app people use in a lot of the world and used by a ton of businesses.

Maybe once the ads start showing on Whatsapp it gets easier to convince people to switch.

There are ads on Viber and people aren’t convinced to switch to Whatsapp either.

Convenience and habit will trump the annoyance of having to see adverts.