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WhatsApp and the domestication of users
(seirdy.one)
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this post was submitted on 17 Jun 2023
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Technology
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seems like a lot of revisionist bullshit in this rant, eg:
WhatsApp rose because:
a) If was free
b) it used data vs sms/mms which was becoming cheaper
c) it was cross platform at the time (blackberry, android, nokia, etc)
d) It used your existing phone number as your identifier, so onboarding and finding existing contacts was swift
Wait, people think of that as an advantage? For me, that has always been the reason I have refused to use it. It's also why I never even tried Google's Allo despite being a big fan. A chat application that isn't using the phone network shouldn't be tied to your phone number. It makes cross-platform support extremely awkward, and that's noticeable in how poor What's App still is for cross-platform use.
For people who previously used SMS and had their contacts saved in the phone's pre-installed contact app, WhatsApp could use all those contacts out of the box.