Either you use WhatsApp or you don't talk to people.
And I'm not saying this is a bad thing, really.. I think "monopolies" have their place in standardizing things that we do and it makes it convenient.
(Side note: if fucking Apple would open up iMessage on android/windows they would OWN the chat market in a matter of minutes in the US)
But there does get to a point where you cannot say "people use it because they like it". Most people use it solely because everyone else uses it.
Just like Facebook. There is no "alternative" for real-life profile social media. If you want to use that type of social media, Facebook is the only thing whether you like it or not.
Facebook started off in a market with Orkut, Myspace, Friendster and along came Path, Twitter, Google+. Facebook had network effects and people gravitated towards it.
So this is basically saying network effect is bad. You cant get too popular.
Yes, it’s network effects. One company with a large accepted network acquires another company with a large accepted network to avoid competing with it, and creating an even larger behemoth with services that will dominate both arms of that industry.
That is where mandatory interoperability could help. We do not have insular e-mail systems that cannot communicate with one another. In case of IM, interoperability would go a long way towards reducing dominance of Facebook.
