I find that in the US, anyone who communicates with people in other countries uses Whatsapp. It was the first easy way to communicate across borders and not have to worry about international charges. It’s also better than SMS/MMS.
I meant easy way for non computer literate people. You handed someone a phone, installed Whatsapp, it sent the auto verification text and now you could communicate without having to know your own username/password or without have to know someone else’s username. It was seamless, and that’s why it caught on so quick, and requiring the phone number verification made it so there was no spam.
The on boarding was so quick and painless, I feel like that’s what made it spread so quickly.
Same. I used whatsapp for like 2 months to talk to a single person, my podcast partner that was in Australia and we quit the podcast and I never used it again.
I have 2 contacts that use signal, one is a VC that I've texted one occasion when we were trying to talk on the phone but Fi was being Fi and he could barely hear me.
I have 2 contacts that have Marco Polo installed for video messages, 1 hasn't been online in over a month and the other is my fiance that's currently living 9 hours away so we use it most days just to see each other.
My brother and mother message me exclusively on messenger, as do a half dozen of my friends even though we have each other's numbers.
At least Signal is seamless once you set it up. I use it for all of my SMS/MMS messages even though my immediate family and a couple of other contacts are the only Signal users I text.
I'd like to get my friends and family on Signal or Riot but I can't get anyone to use them.
Everyone uses SMS (or talks about using Whatsapp but might or might not actually). I was using Google Hangouts long before Whatsapp or Signal started being taken up and now they assume that's what I'd prefer, like that's how I should be communicated with, even when I'd prefer something else.
