Yeah, but the US is pretty insular. Times are different now, but my grandparents who immigrated basically didn't communicate with the old country in my lifetime.
If roughly 15% of the US population is immigrants [1], and not all of them communicate across borders, and very few non-immigtants communicate cross borders there's not a whole lot of demand for a product that reduces costs of cross border messaging in the US.
As an early employee if anyone knew about WhatsApp, they almost certainly were a younger immigrant. Everyone else was like 'why would I use that?, I have unlimited texts' or they were using BBM.
If roughly 15% of the US population is immigrants [1], and not all of them communicate across borders, and very few non-immigtants communicate cross borders there's not a whole lot of demand for a product that reduces costs of cross border messaging in the US.
As an early employee if anyone knew about WhatsApp, they almost certainly were a younger immigrant. Everyone else was like 'why would I use that?, I have unlimited texts' or they were using BBM.
[1] https://www.pewresearch.org/short-reads/2024/09/27/u-s-immig...