After ruining Android messaging, Google says iMessage is too powerful

Google failed to compete with iMessage for years. Now it wants Apple to play nice.

Read the whole story

 

[Rhywden]

imessage is only a thing in the US. Everywhere else is either SMS or whatsapp.

So many people that disliked this post, probably because they lived a shelter life in the US without a passport. It's true - the rest of the world can't even afford an iPhone to care about this. This feels like a first world problem.

Europe does not exist, obviously. Neither does Canada, Japan and Australia.

 

[s73v3r]

imessage is only a thing in the US. Everywhere else is either SMS or whatsapp.

So many people that disliked this post, probably because they lived a shelter life in the US without a passport. It's true - the rest of the world can't even afford an iPhone to care about this. This feels like a first world problem.

So many people asking why iMessage is a thing refuse to acknowledge that none of the alternatives (WhatsApp, Signal, Line, etc) have any traction whatsoever in the US.

 

[andy o]

Being an upgrade over SMS is not really that high a bar, isn't it? But what the other poster mean, is that it doesn't matter how "huge" an upgrade is over SMS, if:

1) It is still tied to carriers.
2) It doesn't offer anything more than other "rich" messaging services and it's in fact worse.

RCS fans will argue about #2 because RCS is "universal", but in reality, how is it easier and more widespread to use RCS than, say, Whatsapp? Even if you only count Pixels, let alone any other phone, RCS can be and is blocked by some carriers, and it's tied to a SIM number. I only use my Google Voice number, and can't use RCS but can use Whatsapp (which is what I do). I can even use freakin Skype easier than I can use RCS on my Pixels.

The difference between RCS (as a standard) vs WhatsUp (or iMessage) is that it's a standard so it is supposed to be available on every platform. Are you suggesting that your dentist office need to ask you to install WhatsUp (or Signal, or Telegram?). At least as a fall back mechanism, the standard is invaluable and irreplaceable. Did you notice that Apple has no problem supporting many standards established by the carriers (5G, 4G LTE etc.)? Do you want them to switch to something proprietary?

Jesus, what is it with you and the dentist's office? Disregarding that weird argument which has been addressed before, RCS fans live in some kind of lofty dream world in which it is universal. But look around. I have pixels and have RCS enabled on my SIM number, which I cannot use because I don't use my SIM number for anything. Even for most people which they do use their SIM number, and disregarding Apple completely, on which phones and apps other than Google messages does RCS work? Maybe in some Samsung phones, but not all. Which countries can I text to? Which carriers does it work on, and which ones block it? Which raises the question, why in the world do carriers have the ability to block it in the first place? Apparently from some reports, Verizon is blocking it even on pixels in the US.

The ideal of RCS is one thing, but the reality is completely different, and Google being in charge of it does not give any confidence, on the contrary. And the weakest point about it is carrier involvement. Any carrier involvement and it's dead in the water.

 

[jazzylarry]

imessage is only a thing in the US. Everywhere else is either SMS or whatsapp.

While it's the largest messaging app overall Whatsapp isn't the biggest messenger everywhere. There are countries such as Japan, China, Korea, Australia, Canada, New Zealand, Greece, and others where Whatsapp isn't the top messaging platform.

On a related note it's always surprising so many seem so positive on Whatsapp being a such dominant player given who owns it.

I know 2 people that use it - the first because of the second.

 

[ardent]

Lol at all the apple bros down voting anyone who criticizes their cult. Definitely not a cult guys.

Say what you will for Apple Fans, at least it's an ethos, Dude.

I DIDN'T WATCH MY BUDDIES DIE FACE DOWN IN THE MUCK SO THESES STRUMPETS COULD....

Listen guys, every poor person I know has an Iphone. You're not in the club just because you financed one.

It says something that they reacted so poorly to a referential joke where the equation was National Socialists = Apple, so Nihilists = Google.

Taking a shot at both sides. Maybe they're culturally deficient. Is not having seen The Big Lebowski a cultural deficiency?

 

[parst181]

Google's history in this space is entirely irrelevant. I see lots of people saying "they could have done the same thing as Apple blah blah blah".

Yes and that would do absolutely nothing to solve the underlying problem that cross platform messaging sucks, and there's no reason for it to suck except that Apple won't make iMessage cross platform and won't implement what standard there is. Believing that standard to be poor is also irrelevant when Apple is also not coming to the table with a better option.

The fact that the user experience for iPhone users sucks when texting Android users is Apple's fault. Full stop. It's in their power to do something about it, and they choose not to, because they know the situation creates peer pressure to buy their phone. I'm sure it's a great business decision. It's also a repugnant one.

Google is not the poster child for how to do messaging right, but that's beside the point.

The cross platform messaging friction could be removed or reduced by everyone implementing a standard. That cannot happen when one company locks up its messaging standard and refuses to implement an open one. What move can Google make now to reduce this problem for users? What move can Apple make? It's clear Google hasn't done well in the space over the years, but if you think that's justification for users to suffer then we just fundamentally disagree.

 

[heartburnkid]

This article misses the mental health forest for the platform technology trees. Apple may not be "the bully", but they definitely are "the enabler".

A single update to iMessage could've stopped all of this bubble-ist/color-ist shit.

Provide one reason why Apple should enable Google.

Well, since you're clearly focused only on the money, I can't.

What does RCS provide me as a user other than major regressions over my current messaging choices? RCS is a huge boon to carriers. That's about it.

RCS is a garbage, jank protocol that only a carrier shill would love.

RCS is a huge upgrade over SMS. And this has been mentioned ad nauseum, so you can't really claim you didn't know it, but in the US, that's the messaging system that most people use, iMessage excepted.

Being an upgrade over SMS is not really that high a bar, isn't it? But what the other poster mean, is that it doesn't matter how "huge" an upgrade is over SMS, if:

1) It is still tied to carriers.
2) It doesn't offer anything more than other "rich" messaging services and it's in fact worse.

RCS fans will argue about #2 because RCS is "universal", but in reality, how is it easier and more widespread to use RCS than, say, Whatsapp? Even if you only count Pixels, let alone any other phone, RCS can be and is blocked by some carriers, and it's tied to a SIM number. I only use my Google Voice number, and can't use RCS but can use Whatsapp (which is what I do). I can even use freakin Skype easier than I can use RCS on my Pixels.

RCS is a drop in replacement for SMS. Most people in the US use SMS for messaging, so that alone makes it a more desirable option than WhatsApp.

Being tied to a SIM number is a feature in this case, not a problem.

 

[cp1919]

...Her reasoning was that a) it's very disruptive in any group messaging - the seamlessness of the conversations is not preserved as the Android user's contribution is often shown in a separate chat or does not preserve context;

This is odd to me. I have and IPhone and most of my friends are on Androids. We have numerous group chats (which mostly they have set up) and all the threads show up for me (green) and well threaded together, not from individuals.

Whereas for my son (on Android) has problems with his friends group chats (started on iPhones) where he only sees them as individual message which have to be individually downloaded. Sounds like exactly the opposite scenario.

 

[graylshaped]

"The social pressure is palpable, with some reporting being ostracized or singled out after switching away from iPhones."

Is iPhonism a cause or a symptom of brain damage?

Google has absolutely sucked in competing with Apple, here

What's that got to do with Apple prodding their teen cultists to become (even more) psycho bullies?

Got a link for that accusation?

 

[graylshaped]

Lol at all the apple bros down voting anyone who criticizes their cult. Definitely not a cult guys.

Say what you will for Apple Fans, at least it's an ethos, Dude.

I DIDN'T WATCH MY BUDDIES DIE FACE DOWN IN THE MUCK SO THESES STRUMPETS COULD....

Listen guys, every poor person I know has an Iphone. You're not in the club just because you financed one.

Is not having seen The Big Lebowski a cultural deficiency?

Yes. D'uh. It ties the whole room together.

 

[Spice_Weasel_Bam]

Back in my online dating days, I did genuinely (more than once!) have women say "ew no thank you" when I texted them and a green bubble popped up on their screen.

No. A green bubble did not pop up on their iPhone screen when they received your text message.

Well, maybe not a green bubble, but you can tell if someone is using iMessage before sending them a message. Green arrow is for SMS and it changes to a blue arrow if the user is found in iMessage. Also the Facetime button shows up.

 

[Rauth85]

Whether or not it is actually deserved, it is pretty clear that Apple is the only evil tech megacorp that anybody actually likes.

As a person who has been following tech for a while, Apples leap into the mainstream that began with the iPod and later iPhone still confuses me.

The iPod was a bit odd -- I had one of those Sandisk players and it seemed better in every way (easier to get files on the thing, flash rather than a spinny drive, ran for ages on a single alkaline battery). However, I definitely wanted one once it got into the iPhone form factor, because I was on a campus with wifi everywhere (too expensive for my broke student self).

I believe the reason people like Apple is that their products mostly work OK and the relationship is straightforward and less creepy than a company that primarily subsists on ads.

The iPod was already successful by the time Sandisk put out mp3 players (oldest I can find is 2006). I bought my iPod in 2003-2004 and it was already the 3rd gen. The reason I bought it was simply cause there was no viable alternative. Sony was still doing their Sony thing with DRM and forcibly and sneakily re-converting MP3 into ATRAC, not to mention their terrible software even compared to iTunes. (And of course they would go on to fuck up even harder in 2005 with the rootkit fiasco, which by that point killed all interest buying Sony audio products for me.)

IIRC there were a few other players at the time like Creative, but they had their own problems. I don't remember exactly, but what I remember was I just wanted a player that could play untouched mp3s and at that time I couldn't find a viable one except the iPod. Maybe Creative's could, but the hardware and/or software were extremely awful. Once you got the hang of iTunes and how it worked, syncing to the iPod was not too bad at all.

People really forget the attraction of itunes. If only winamp made an mp3 player.

 

[Adreaver]

...Her reasoning was that a) it's very disruptive in any group messaging - the seamlessness of the conversations is not preserved as the Android user's contribution is often shown in a separate chat or does not preserve context;

This is odd to me. I have and IPhone and most of my friends are on Androids. We have numerous group chats (which mostly they have set up) and all the threads show up for me (green) and well threaded together, not from individuals.

Whereas for my son (on Android) has problems with his friends group chats (started on iPhones) where he only sees them as individual message which have to be individually downloaded. Sounds like exactly the opposite scenario.

Your son needs to change a setting in his messaging app. It sounds like he is set to mass text, rather than group MMS.

 

[andy o]

Being an upgrade over SMS is not really that high a bar, isn't it? But what the other poster mean, is that it doesn't matter how "huge" an upgrade is over SMS, if:

1) It is still tied to carriers.
2) It doesn't offer anything more than other "rich" messaging services and it's in fact worse.

RCS fans will argue about #2 because RCS is "universal", but in reality, how is it easier and more widespread to use RCS than, say, Whatsapp?

In the US? Absolutely. Again, almost nobody here uses those alternatives, iMessage excluded. Everybody does use SMS. Which means that everybody would use RCS.

I don't know what fantasy world is this, but I can't use RCS even if I wanted. And granted I'm a minority with Google Voice. But others with non-Pixel phones, they have to download the Google Messages app to enable it, how is that different than Whatsapp? The issue is not the ideal of RCS, it's the disparity between it and actual reality.

Even if you only count Pixels, let alone any other phone, RCS can be and is blocked by some carriers, and it's tied to a SIM number.

Just like SMS, and yet, that's still the overwhelmingly dominant messaging platform in the US.

Try having friends or family outside the US and then get back to me.

I only use my Google Voice number, and can't use RCS

That's entirely Google's fault.

That's the company you're trusting to do RCS competently.

but can use Whatsapp

I could "use" WhatsApp too, but literally nobody I know is on it.

But you could, without carrier bullshit, which you cannot do with RCS.

 

[johnsonwax]

Just to establish a benchmark here - WhatsApp has 2 billion users. iMessage has 1.1 billion. iMessage is hardly just the US.

And the blue bubbles have other utility. It also indicates who you can potentially Find my Friend and FaceTime with. Plus there's a very high likelihood you can Apple Pay Cash with them as well. RCS isn't the end all here, there's other social interaction components that lack open solutions. Plus iMessage has substantially higher file size limits than RCS, and Apple periodically increases those limits, which would be a challenge with a standard like RCS without a substantial revision to spec, and in my experience iMessage is a very frequent file exchange platform.

I think Apple should support RCS, but it's just a small fraction of what that blue bubble really communicates. You need to roll Venmo, Zoom, and a few other things to really provide an alternative, and good luck with that.

 

[Deleted member 174040]

Users don't care about standards, they care about features and functionality. Standards can be a way to deliver that, but are not strictly necessary.

Messages for iOS delivers free messaging within the apple system, and still allows for legacy SMS et al type messages from outside of the Apple Ecosystem. Functionality, for Apple users (those Apple cares about) are fine.

 

[mainmac]

Blue = end-to-end encryption (and no Google tracking).

Yeah, F* off, Google.

 

[Deleted member 174040]

Google ...can't create good user experiences to save their lives. It's clear Google, as many other technology companies, are run by engineers to create products for engineers.

 

[andy o]

Being an upgrade over SMS is not really that high a bar, isn't it? But what the other poster mean, is that it doesn't matter how "huge" an upgrade is over SMS, if:

1) It is still tied to carriers.
2) It doesn't offer anything more than other "rich" messaging services and it's in fact worse.

RCS fans will argue about #2 because RCS is "universal", but in reality, how is it easier and more widespread to use RCS than, say, Whatsapp? Even if you only count Pixels, let alone any other phone, RCS can be and is blocked by some carriers, and it's tied to a SIM number. I only use my Google Voice number, and can't use RCS but can use Whatsapp (which is what I do). I can even use freakin Skype easier than I can use RCS on my Pixels.

RCS is a drop in replacement for SMS. Most people in the US use SMS for messaging, so that alone makes it a more desirable option than WhatsApp.

Being tied to a SIM number is a feature in this case, not a problem.

There is no need to be tied to a SIM number or any carrier involvement for an open standard. Google could have done it in the time of Hangouts. They could build an API for any app to tap into, but they chose not to. There were even open standards back then with XMPP which others have mentioned. There is no barrier to Google building a service that is functionally equivalent to RCS that other apps can tap into on Android, which also offers SMS fallback. People have asking them to do it since Hangouts, and they've just gone with whatever was approved by carriers. Google is just not the company to trust to bring an open messaging standard with universal compatibility.

 

[mainmac]

Just to establish a benchmark here - WhatsApp has 2 billion users. iMessage has 1.1 billion. iMessage is hardly just the US.

And the blue bubbles have other utility. It also indicates who you can potentially Find my Friend and FaceTime with. Plus there's a very high likelihood you can Apple Pay Cash with them as well. RCS isn't the end all here, there's other social interaction components that lack open solutions. Plus iMessage has substantially higher file size limits than RCS, and Apple periodically increases those limits, which would be a challenge with a standard like RCS without a substantial revision to spec, and in my experience iMessage is a very frequent file exchange platform.

I think Apple should support RCS, but it's just a small fraction of what that blue bubble really communicates. You need to roll Venmo, Zoom, and a few other things to really provide an alternative, and good luck with that.

You left off the critical feature for me which none of the messages support, the blue bubble also means end-to-end encryption.

 

[acetothermus]

Texting should bring us together, and the solution exists. Let's fix this as one industry.

Correct, the solution exists, and it is called Signal.

Too bad it's not as accessible or easy to convert to. I love it and use it almost exclusively, but trying to convert friends/family is a PITA.

 

[Donatoadc]

That someone needed 25K words to write a tome about Google's text messaging saga and ineptitude is really all you need to know. They're totally lost in space on this issue.

 

[XMPKDG]

There are so many messaging services today: Telegram, Signal, WhatsApp, FB Messenger, Google Chat, Slack, Teams, Skype, iMessage, and dozens of others. What a novel problem nobody has ever seen before! /sarcasm

Anyone who is older than 20 years should easily remember ICQ, Yahoo Messenger, AOL Messenger, IRC, MSN Messenger etc... and we had a program called Gaim (aka Pidgin) and Trillian that put all the chat protocols under one software, one interface. With one program you could login to all the messaging systems. You can then message anyone on any service with the same program, seamlessly as if everyone was using the same program.

So the problem today isn't that there are a lot of different services, the problem is that they go out of their way to wall off their service so it can only be used by their stupid client. A problem created by people going out of their way is a problem of greed, not technology. Trying to solve it by forcing Apple to adopt some new protocol is the incorrect solution for this problem. The solution is to force messaging services to not go out of their way to enforce exclusivity on which client can use their service.

 

[s73v3r]

Being an upgrade over SMS is not really that high a bar, isn't it? But what the other poster mean, is that it doesn't matter how "huge" an upgrade is over SMS, if:

1) It is still tied to carriers.
2) It doesn't offer anything more than other "rich" messaging services and it's in fact worse.

RCS fans will argue about #2 because RCS is "universal", but in reality, how is it easier and more widespread to use RCS than, say, Whatsapp?

In the US? Absolutely. Again, almost nobody here uses those alternatives, iMessage excluded. Everybody does use SMS. Which means that everybody would use RCS.

I don't know what fantasy world is this, but I can't use RCS even if I wanted. And granted I'm a minority with Google Voice. But others with non-Pixel phones, they have to download the Google Messages app to enable it, how is that different than Whatsapp? The issue is not the ideal of RCS, it's the disparity between it and actual reality.

No, the idea would be that RCS would be a drop in replacement for SMS. You wouldn't be required to download Google Messages; it would work with whatever SMS client your phone currently has.

Even if you only count Pixels, let alone any other phone, RCS can be and is blocked by some carriers, and it's tied to a SIM number.

Just like SMS, and yet, that's still the overwhelmingly dominant messaging platform in the US.

Try having friends or family outside the US and then get back to me.

Again, minority of people. I do not care what people outside the US use to communicate. I am not outside the US. So that is completely irrelevant. I talk with people inside the US, and there, SMS is the overwhelming favorite.

I only use my Google Voice number, and can't use RCS

That's entirely Google's fault.

That's the company you're trusting to do RCS competently.

Not necessarily. Carriers can also do RCS.

but can use Whatsapp

I could "use" WhatsApp too, but literally nobody I know is on it.

But you could, without carrier bullshit, which you cannot do with RCS.

How do I "use" WhatsApp IF NO ONE I KNOW IS ON IT?

Seriously, how do you not get this through your skull? None of the alternatives in the US are anywhere near popular enough to be reliably used. SMS is king. What is so hard to understand about that?

 

[TurboPascal]

Yes, Google who would not play nice with its services on the Windows Phone now wants Apple to play nice, wow some nice irony.

 

[ArcBaltic]

Does imessage really matter that much to anyone? Like all my friends have centralized on discord or slack. For the non-nerds it seems like whatsapp is where they congregate. The really boring people in my life use FB Messenger.

 

[Warped Up]

Meanwhile at Facebook HQ:
🗯

 

[PhaseShifter]

And btw, if Google were earnest in their intentions here, they'd take a lump of money, sign a binding letter of intent, and create an independent foundation that is financed by Google and could not be shuttered in a year or two when a C-level drone at Google gets bored and needs a new hobby, and have those folks design and develop a completely free and open messaging standard that contains all the functionality of iMessage and more. Then make that freely available to anyone looking to offer their customers a well-designed and secure messaging platform, and invite folks to contribute to its future development.

Agree 100%.

Then Google would have my attention and perhaps even earn back a modicum of respect. But until the above takes place, Google can fuck right off, because for the time being, Apple is by far the lesser of two evils.

Hard disagree.

<rant>
Whatever problems I've had with Google in the past, I've always been able to uninstall Google software from my PC.
1) Back when I started using open source software, I tried to uninstall Quicktime--and discovered their "uninstaller" went through the motions onscreen and said it was removing the software from my system when I ran it, but didn't actually uninstall anything, or even remove the registry associations for various filetypes.
2) Apple's support forum was less than helpful--other Windows users were complaining about the same issue, but every 2-3 days the mods would wipe all of the threads on the topic.
3) That was when Win98 was relatively new, so I figured it might be an issue with the new OS--but I never had that issue with other software, and when I checked about a decade later I found that still nothing had been done about the problem, even well after Win7 had been widely adopted.

Google's also never installed software on my system that I didn't deliberately download. Unlike Apple, whose 4th strike was secretly installing the unremovable Quicktime when I just wanted to download mp3s from iTunes. This was closely followed by their 5th strike, which was having nagware popup notifications that I should try Safari while I had other Apple software on my PC.
</rant>
Maybe sometime in the last decade Apple finally figured out how to play nice (or at least civilized), but I'm long since done giving them chances.

 

[ripvlan]

Google's well-known "habit" of rolling out a product and then randomly getting bored with it and dropping it (Hangouts, Trips, etc.) is one of the reasons I refuse to invest in their ecosystem. They aren't reliable when it comes to sticking with their own products.

I heard they might drop Android.

You are correct.

I think Android was a stepping stone. That's why they built chat into it :-D

 

[The Cappy]

Teens and college students said they dread the ostracism that comes with a green text.

Oh my God. Reading this makes me cranky and old.

Children are cruel. If you didn't experience it in childhood you were either lucky or the bully.

LOL. That is, in itself, an abusive binary choice. There is a difference between experiencing bullying and peer pressure. Just because someone actually learned life's lesson of being able to shrug off peer pressure does not mean you get to threaten them with laughable false labels.

 

[_GntlStone_]

Whether or not it is actually deserved, it is pretty clear that Apple is the only evil tech megacorp that anybody actually likes.

As a person who has been following tech for a while, Apples leap into the mainstream that began with the iPod and later iPhone still confuses me.

The iPod was a bit odd -- I had one of those Sandisk players and it seemed better in every way (easier to get files on the thing, flash rather than a spinny drive, ran for ages on a single alkaline battery). However, I definitely wanted one once it got into the iPhone form factor, because I was on a campus with wifi everywhere (too expensive for my broke student self).

I believe the reason people like Apple is that their products mostly work OK and the relationship is straightforward and less creepy than a company that primarily subsists on ads.

The iPod was already successful by the time Sandisk put out mp3 players (oldest I can find is 2006). I bought my iPod in 2003-2004 and it was already the 3rd gen. The reason I bought it was simply cause there was no viable alternative. Sony was still doing their Sony thing with DRM and forcibly and sneakily re-converting MP3 into ATRAC, not to mention their terrible software even compared to iTunes. (And of course they would go on to fuck up even harder in 2005 with the rootkit fiasco, which by that point killed all interest buying Sony audio products for me.)

IIRC there were a few other players at the time like Creative, but they had their own problems. I don't remember exactly, but what I remember was I just wanted a player that could play untouched mp3s and at that time I couldn't find a viable one except the iPod. Maybe Creative's could, but the hardware and/or software were extremely awful. Once you got the hang of iTunes and how it worked, syncing to the iPod was not too bad at all.

People really forget the attraction of itunes. If only winamp made an mp3 player.

I had a WinAmp plugin that would export my aylist to my mp3 player (Zune). Or you could just use File Explorer.

Ahhh, the good old Napster days!

 

[dollyllama]

With so many people (rightfully) hating on Facebook, I fail to understand why they continue to use Whatsapp and share their contacts with the company.

 

[mschira]

Correct, the solution exists, and it is called Signal.

Signal is my main texting app these days. But interoperability is its Achilles' heel. Moxie and co. need to stabilize the feature set and make it an open protocol asap.

The recent move to include sending and receiving cryptocurrency (at least outside the US) is worrisome. First, it's feature creep and additional attack surface. Second, it's a further reason that regulators will use to justify banning end-to-end encryption as we now have it.

I think it's a clever move.
It will take years until the law sets it's sight proper and decide to do something. At this point Signal payment may be established in a wide user base.
Then after a few court skirmishes they agree to split the messenger from the payment ending with Signal money and Signal chat.
Brilliant.

 

[jhesse]

Perhaps we'll even get a third bubble color, and wouldn't that be lovely?

Bit late for that, iMessage messages to T-Mobile support are a corporate shade of magenta.

 

[dollyllama]

With RCS, Google has access to the content of group chats. RCS should be avoided if you care at all about privacy.

 

[fknuckles]

The amount of non-USA users praising WhatsApp is hilarious considering most people are trying to stay away from Facebook as much as possible. Facebook controlled WhatsApp isn't a viable alternative to actual private messaging, and it's weird to see so many people defending/praising Facebook for it. Also a little scary that Facebook of all companies is controlling text based communications for the rest of the world.

I think you will find that in real life, most people aren't mortified by Facebook. Its6a classic case of "vocal minority".

No matter what you think about Facebook, WhatsApp is a great service. The app is lightweight and well designed. It offers end to end encryption and isn't an ad-filled pile. You can have high quality voice and video calls including group calls and you can link with a computer to message from the web.

It has 2 billion users worldwide and a growing number of businesses provide Customer Support over WhatsApp.

Facebook understand it's valuable and so they tread carefully when it comes to whatsapp, this is why they're looking at business use cases in an effort to monetise it.

WhatsApp is basically the Google Maps of Facebook. People complain and deride Google all the time, but Google Maps hardly ever gets bad press -- it's just silently used by the vast majority of people, even on ios, despite the significant hurdles apple puts in the way.

Yes, I'm one of those heavy WhatsApp users. I also have Signal and Telegram, but a small fraction of my contacts are on Telegram and a negligible number are on Signal.

 

[s73v3r]

With so many people (rightfully) hating on Facebook, I fail to understand why they continue to use Whatsapp and share their contacts with the company.

I imagine it's largely the same reason SMS is still so popular in the US: That's where all the people you want to talk to are. Would it be nice if everyone left SMS/WhatsApp (for different reasons, obviously)? Yes. But, for what? Ask a dozen different people, and you'll probably get a dozen or so different answers.

 

[Joseph Acerbic]

Blue bubbles:
"Have you seen how fat Cindy got, LOL?"
"Jake will soon dump her huge ass for sure!"
"OMG, it's so sick we got end to end encryption! Think if Google got their hands on these secrets!"
"Did you hear about that loser who transferred to the school yesterday? She DOESN'T HAVE AN IPHONE!!!!!!"

 

[Grayleaf]

Seriously, Google’s argument hinges on the immaturity of 14-year old girls… that is so not-fetch

 

[torp]

iMessage? SMS? What world is Google living in? Normal people use whatsapp.

Europe point of view at least.