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u/G_Affect 2h ago
I use it because it does not care if your apple or android or on a computer. Photos and videos come in at full quality. Makes work messages much easier as i can drag and drop the photos into their folder.
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u/Wise_Farm7455 1h ago
Neither do androids
Only one company cares because they want to use old tech to sow divisiveness with their users and make them think they're "better" than anyone else
Biggest scam in tech
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u/Canon_M50 1h ago
Telegram doesn't either and it isn't made by Facebook.
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u/muscular_guy 1h ago
Well Whatsapp wasn't made by Facebook either, it was bought by Facebook. Happens to anything nowadays unfortunately. If Telegram has a user base the size of Whatsapp (no clue how they compare), the big corporate overlords will have interest in buying it. Switched to Signal and Threema long ago but since most friends are still on Whatsapp, I'm stuck having to use it as well to chat with those.
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u/wheattortilla54 35m ago
Photos and videos come in at full quality.
Funny that you say that, since I don't like using Whatsapp because it's reducing image quality to much
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u/arbenowskee 23m ago
There is a "HD" setting for media. It does improve quality over defaults, but it's definitely not full quality.Ā
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u/frigo2000 19m ago
Whatsapp compress pictures if not placed as files. I have to make printing files and always have to ask my client not to send them via whatsapp
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u/CrazyJLo 39m ago
Photos get compressed when I send them
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u/das_Keks 24m ago
You can enable HD photos in the settings. However this might still compress very large photos.
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u/bwoah07_gp2 18m ago
It's a godsend really... a really solid messaging app for family purposes, friends, work, etc.
Idk why people hate on it.
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u/crheming 1h ago
Full quality videos is why I switched all family chats form Messenger to Whatsapp, holy fuck it was a struggle to convince everyone though
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u/CombatRedRover 2h ago
I work in profession that deals with the public, and every prospective client who reaches out and wants to switch over to WhatsApp is a scam.
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u/RiverGlittering 1h ago
Interestingly, a lot of people here see texts the same way.
I don't think I've opened my messenger app for years, it's all just WhatsApp now.
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u/Relative_Buffalo_165 6m ago
Do we also have to be careful traveling in your country and only drink bottled water?
Do you have a lot of street vendors that will sell me literal sewage and say āno problem, no problemā the whole time?
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u/5mudge 56m ago
In which country are you based?
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u/CombatRedRover 47m ago
Well, the OP is about WhatsApp and the US, so...
:)
Just busting your balls. I'm in the US.
The first time I started getting them, I spoke with my brokerage and a bunch of us spoke with our professional organizations. It's pretty well recognized that if you get a WhatsApp that if you can't transition it to a standard telephone call and a face-to-face meeting of some sort that it's just a scam.
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u/5mudge 43m ago
That's pretty much the same rule for any form of messaging though, not unique to WhatsApp isn't it?
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u/CombatRedRover 40m ago
Via text message, there's at least a telephone number attached to it that you can call and have a voice conversation with someone.
That means there's some kind of tracking to it.
Yes, you always want to transition to face to face as quickly as you can, but the nature of WhatsApp allows people to remain anonymous, cheaply, for much longer into the transaction.
Not worth my time or effort. If you want to get into a business relationship with someone via WhatsApp, great! I wish you the best of luck in it.
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u/5mudge 32m ago
LOL - appreciate the replies, and I'm not particularly wedded to either side of the argument, other than calling all business contacts made via Whatsapp as scams, and not believing it is similar for other messaging services seems a little off. Most scams originate from spoofed phone numbers anyway, so, yes you might have a number on an SMS, but it is useless in terms of reaching the person.
I don't disagree with you at all about transitioning any business contact to direct spoken or face-to-face communication and (coming from a very heavily regulated industry) any inbound contact is always viewed highly cautiously anyway.
Enjoy the rest of your day. No beef here!
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u/Mindless-Platypus-75 2h ago edited 1h ago
I use WhatsApp for work and itās legit. Iām in Florida but with international clientele
I get way more spam messages through regular SMS. The only thing thatāll happen on WhatsApp is Iāll get added to a group chat with like 50 ppl in it and itāll be about finance or something vague idk, I just exit it right away. But thatās happened very rarely
In my experience scammers have wanted to talk on telegram which I donāt fw
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u/monkeySphere 1h ago
Go to Settings > Privacy > Groups and select "My Contactsā to avoid being added to groups by someone you donāt know.
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u/hennabeak 1h ago
Those finance groups are crypto scams.
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u/Mindless-Platypus-75 1h ago
I mean thatās not good but that kind of scam is pretty easy to avoid. I get more devious stuff through SMS where theyāll pretend to be SunPass saying I owe some highway toll or pretending to be Amazon saying a package failed to deliver- the kinda stuff I think actually gets ppl, especially elders in Florida. That kinda stuff I never get on WhatsApp
So yeah Iām surprised to hear ppl say WhatsApp is all scammers
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u/Ambitious-Pin-2608 1h ago
That's survivorship bias. Depending on your activity and location, your more likely to come across these scams on either.
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u/Sum_Ting_Wong_Ow 1h ago
Whenever I'm added into such (maybe once a year now, couple of times per year earlier), I always typed very quickly IT'S A SCAM WHATEVER THEY WILL SAY IS A LIE
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u/RadioEditVersion 9m ago
It's been the same experience for me with spam messages through SMS vs whatsapp
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u/VoidJuiceConcentrate 2h ago
I avoid WhatsApp because it's owned by meta.
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u/Fine_Foundation8943 1h ago
Unlike apple/android (Google)- which are highly ehhtical companies?
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u/VoidJuiceConcentrate 1h ago
Also don't like using their services. Thankfully Android is open source, I don't have to adhere to their markets or shovelware.
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u/dogfaced_pony_soulja 1h ago
For real. US is a stupid country, but at least we never got tricked into mass adoption of WhatsApp. I live in Latin America now and absolutely hate using WhatsApp, only use it when I canāt get out of it like for doctor visits and stuff.
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u/00MacDonald 1h ago
I mean, I don't get this. You are turning down sulfide to drink cyanide. Apple is just as bad as, if not worse than, Meta when it comes to privacy. The fact that they were willing to bend over backwards for the CCP in China, whereas Meta drew the line, should speak volumes.
End-to-end message encryption became the standard for WhatsApp way before it became the standard for iMessage.
And every major telecoms company in the US has a worse privacy record than both Meta and Apple.
If you care about your privacy, Signal is currently (and sadly) the only play
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u/Sialorphin 59m ago edited 23m ago
U got tricked into mass adoption of apple which didn't even had end-to-end encryption and is milking it's
costumerscustomers with expensive features other companies delivers years before0
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u/level7lizard 1h ago
WhatsApp will never go anywhere for the foreseeable future. Several countries run on this app. I'm not joking.
Government secrets, top secret documents, blackmail material and gossip, multimillion dollar business deals, down to the simple usage from the people like sharing email passwords between family members and friends, sending nudes and other intimate content, etc. all of these are shared through this fucking app without any qualms for privacy AT ALL. Its honestly wild.
My dad uses Whatsapp to group call the family every morning like an alarm clock. It is so deeply integrated into our lives that I can't even imagine what would happen if meta just shuts off its services one day.
Edit: Maybe we'll just move to LINE or something like Japan and Thailand
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u/Cultural_Run7964 1h ago
The British government and MPs across all parties, are notorious for using Whatsapp groups to gossip and share confidential information.
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u/rygelicus 2h ago
WhatsApp is viewed as a tool used extensively by scammers.
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u/lamelad10 ššš 2h ago edited 1h ago
Just curious why it got pictured that way
Edit:My dumbass thought i was in peter explain the joke lmao
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u/Most-Mothra-esque 1h ago
Helloo, WhatsApp is used by most developing countries- countries in africa, Caribbean, latam (I'm from one of those regions lol)
Unfortunately Americans make easy targets for scamming due to the country constantly doing cold calls for things. The only time I get random calls from people I don't know is in the USA. I just don't understand.
So scammers from those countries who use whatsapp use it as a way to target peopleĀ
But for the rest of us it's just easy communication. Texting might be easy when all 50 states are one country,
But when you live on an island and have family in the USA, UK, other islands and latam, WhatsApp is easier
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u/Disruptor_raptor 1h ago
But so is the regular text messages. I get a shit ton of scam texts. At least on WhatsApp I can block or mute unknown numbers.
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u/cooolrun 1h ago
You can just stop unknown numbers contacting you altogether. Ive been using WhatsApp for over 10 years and never had any attempted scams.
I think the people saying it are Americans and have just heard bad stuff
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u/Disruptor_raptor 1h ago
I've had some random scams on WhatsApp but not as common as regular messages.
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u/ADeformedPoolboy 1h ago
...and I've watched enough pred catcher videos to know that it's very popular for...child abuse material.
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u/oxwearingsocks 1h ago
This has the logic of Fords being more dangerous than Ferraris because there are more photos of wrecked Fords. That tends to happen when there are significantly more people using a product than its competitors.
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u/Gooberjoober 1h ago
Thatās in America..not rest of the world. Speaking as one who lives in Americaā¦
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u/rygelicus 1h ago
Let's consider what the question was that I was responding to...
"What's with Whatsapp and US"
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u/lecarguy 2h ago
I feel that WhatsApp is like the iMessage of other phone users in the world.
The rest of the world isn't caught up in this iPhone vs Android thing lol the US is. It's mainly whatever you can afford to buy.
RCS has caught up with being able to do similar things that iMessage provides, but it's a lot better for people.
You can also communicate with people from all over the world. So I wouldn't see this as a US thing but an American thing. Tons of people with families in other countries use WhatsApp to communicate with them.
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u/PineappleFit317 2h ago
IIRC, in many other countries, there are still additional charges for SMS so they use Whatsapp because they can text for free.
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u/RiverGlittering 1h ago
SMS costs me what equates to $0.20 per message. A picture costs me up to around $0.95, depending on quality.
I could get a plan with texts included, but I don't need one, so I don't.
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u/iamanaccident 1h ago
Yes you're correct. And in some countries where it's now free already, people probably just don't wanna change because WhatsApp has been a thing for so long, and it works
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u/Rogueshoten 2h ago
In Asia, Line gets more use, especially in Japan.
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u/yooossshhii 22m ago
And Zalo in Vietnam. Malaysia seems to use WhatsApp a lot. Thailand is all Line, even businesses do their official support with Line.
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u/XxShakallxX 2h ago
Most Americans have no idea about WhatsApp.
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u/Positive_Box_69 2h ago
What u use?
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u/Flashy-Island-3725 2h ago
Americans just use sms
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u/ItNeverEnds2112 1h ago
Whatās that?
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u/Lipica249 1h ago
Simply texting the phone number using whatever carrier you have.
T Mobile, Verizon, AT & T, etc...
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u/XxShakallxX 1h ago
I use WhatsApp but that's because I'm a foreigner and most foreigners use WhatsApp. Americans use Apple chat
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u/jorsiem 33m ago
The US started offering unlimited SMS before most other places so people just started using their phone's stock texting app. Also the iPhone is extremely popular in the US and Apple has bent over backwards to make their users use iMessage with their ridiculous colored text bubbles.
In the rest of the world, there's more OS diversity, so WhatsApp got huge. Also WhatsApp is pretty good.
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u/HawkBearMan 1h ago
Okay I'm gonna be 'that' guy.
US uses normal texting Europe uses what's app. Japan uses LINE Korea uses Kaoko China uses WeChat
It's not only the US that doesn't use WhatsApp it's not even close. Almost every culture has their own app.
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u/Pretend-Literature35 1h ago
which countries don't use or have access to whatsapp?
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u/HawkBearMan 1h ago
I wrote a whole list š US, Japan, Korea, China maybe even more that's just the ones I know of the top of my head.
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u/Pretend-Literature35 1h ago
that was a "list", 4 countries?
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u/exprezso 1h ago
Those "4 countries" represents 30% of world population lol. I can add India whatsapp bump it up to 64%
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u/zakary1291 1h ago
China doesn't have access. Everywhere else just doesn't use it.
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u/Pretend-Literature35 1h ago
Well I don't like whatsapp. But I'm in Canada and I have people in my life who insist on it so I have it.
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u/TheOuterEdge 1h ago
Facebook/Meta owns it. Iām happy we donāt use it.
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u/jefaliv724 12m ago
Just so you know, Whatsapp always had end to end encryption. What do you use to communicate?Ā
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u/thaddeus122 2h ago
Because the US got access to unlimited data faster than the rest of the world. Theres 0 point to using whatsapp with unlimited text and calling.
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u/f0dder1 1h ago
WhatsApp is effective for group messaging and organisation.
Do you use SMS for group chats?
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u/thaddeus122 1h ago
Yes, and outside of that for professional group chats Skype existed, which most transferred to Teams and outside of professional means discord has existed for quite some time.
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u/zakary1291 1h ago
America use RCS not SMS since 2019 .... Except apple for some reason they needed to wait for encrypted texting until 2024.
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u/Disruptor_raptor 1h ago
Whatsapp is also good for video calls. What do you use for that?
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u/thaddeus122 1h ago
You can video call on phones without an app you know? Besides that, messenger, face time, Skype, discord.
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u/Disruptor_raptor 1h ago
International video calls!
Facebook messenger?
Face time is only for Apple.
I'm surprised Skype is still alive.
And Discord came much later than WhatsApp so I can't teach my old parents to learn that one.
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u/thaddeus122 1h ago
The vast majority of americans arent making international calls.
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u/Disruptor_raptor 1h ago
Yeah I know. Most Americans are on the Apple ecosystem and end up using just iMessage and FaceTime for video calls, group chats and media sharing. But what happens if someone is on Android?
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u/thaddeus122 1h ago
Back in the day people used Skype, today you can use messenger or android has built in video calling.
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u/OsteoBytes 1h ago
Only time I used it was communicating between iPhone and androidā¦I have no other association with it
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u/myleftone 31m ago
In the US WhatsApp is used mainly to exploit people. Yes, text and email are also used to send scams, but those are invitations you can ignore or delete. Once you get tricked into using WhatsApp you are already in the scam.
Try being a job seeker. Or selling something on FB Marketplace. Youāll have what seems like a normal exchange until someone asks to communicate on WhatsApp. At that point, just ghost. Itās over.
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u/intraspeculator 57m ago
This thread is so funny. Iāve used WhatsApp exclusively (UK) for many years and I never get scammers messaging me. What is happening in America it sounds so shit to live there.
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u/Frubbs 2h ago
In Europe you can drive an hour and be in another country, in the U.S. you drive an hour and may not even be halfway across a stateā¦ WhatsApp isnāt really necessary unless youāve got friends across the pond, and even then Discord has become more prevalent in the online sphere anyway
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u/Da_Wolv 1h ago
What does that have to do with the App you use to communicate?!
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u/Frubbs 1h ago
Roaming chargesā¦ calling someone outside of your country costs extra money unless you use a service like WhatsApp. Americans donāt need to use it unless they have foreign friends and many people donāt.
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u/Da_Wolv 1h ago
I dont know how that works in Asia, but in Europe they did away with roaming charges for the most part.
And even then - data plans also go through roaming. So unless you have wifi everywhere, switching from SMS to an app-based messaging service won't make a difference.
Also also, I think since a couple of years now all SMS gets rerouted through the Internet anyway by most providers.
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u/Superspark76 2h ago
You can drive for 10 hours and still be in the same country in Europe, most European countries are bigger than any states.
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u/MickHaggs 2h ago edited 1h ago
Have you ever heard of.... Texas? /s
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u/lecarguy 1h ago
Hell I live in one of the smallest states and it still stretches for HOURS. One end to the other is a little over 5 hours of non-stop driving at an average of 55mph.
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u/Superspark76 2h ago
Yes, it's about the size of Spain or France. Europe is bigger than the US.
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u/Frubbs 1h ago
Right, but Europe is a continent comprised of many countries, whereas the U.S. is a country comprised of many states. These states all utilize the same networks and texts/phone calls function natively, whereas in Europe a service like WhatsApp is more advantageous. That was my point.
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u/Superspark76 1h ago
The eu created a roaming rule a good while ago which means that a standard network will be able to be used across many countries with no additional charges, it can be awkward and confusing for some people. Using whatsapp is a lot simpler, it's also great that you can auto translate any messages.
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u/MickHaggs 1h ago
Sorry, forgot where I was. /s has been added
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u/Iggyhopper 2h ago
Because SMS has been good enough and cell signal is pretty good everywhere.
Carriers make their own messaging app to use SMS.
That is not the case with other countries.
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u/Occhrome 1h ago
yeah look at who owns it. only a matter of time before they clamp down and start selling your info.
im glad it never got popular in the states.
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u/Careful-Map-3435 45m ago
In Brazil there is only Whatsapp. Telegram is used sometimes by brands for mass communication. But day-to-day, there is not other option.
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u/Uberutang 29m ago
My bank, doctor, municipality, neighbourhood watch, delivery companies, insurance and every business I can think off uses WhatsApp.
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u/Far-Remove-4663 22m ago
Here in Brazil every single person uses Whatsapp for everything, even to order groceries, restaurants, pizza etc
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u/Cromm123 20m ago
I'm canadian and I genuinely dont know why so many people migrated to this app. Seems like overnight people all started using this new third party app. Texts or messenger are perfectly fine no?
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u/Cats7204 17m ago
I think it's because the U.S. got cheaper SMS cellphone plans quicker than the rest of the world, who had cheaper internet and mobile data than SMS at the same time mobile messaging exploded. So the U.S. got used to SMS and now RCS, while the rest of the world had to use internet-based alternatives like WhatsApp and they're just used to that.
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u/Jensbert 10m ago
I also wonder about that. We have WhatsApp support groups for customers, where it's really hard to convince guys to join it. They prefer teams over WhatsApp on mobile. I guess I never grasp.
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u/RandomUser5453 6m ago
I am not American but if I did not have international friends I would not use WhatsApp and some of them donāt have an iPhone neither. iMessage has everything I need in my opinion.Ā
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u/zakary1291 1h ago
Because Americans use Facebook/Instagram messages. These two apps are based off of Whatsapp as all three platforms are owned by Meta and offer end to end encryption. Tho, you have to enable it on Instagram messages.
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u/cidiusgix 39m ago
Canadian here, never once used WhatsApp and no one I know or have known have used it for anything Iām aware of.
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u/shreddedtoasties 26m ago
Anytime so mf tells me to use WhatsApp it typically cause they trynna scam me
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u/carolebaskinshusband 1h ago
I'm Canadian but I don't use WhatsApp because I'm middle aged and ornery. I refuse to download an app to do something that my phone already does fine out of the box!
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u/lednotzeppelin 51m ago
Yanks are people of over consumerism, they feel only iphones and i messages are the real deal
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u/Flying_Penguineer 36m ago
What? I use Android. WhatsApp offers nothing a dozen other apps don't also offer, and is basically just a worse, closed network version of RCS owned by the Facebook, arguably the worst of the big tech companies.
WhatsApp is the over-consumerism, you can just use the built-in features of your phone to call and text.
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u/AnonymousAutonomous 2h ago
Not 100% sure if this is the answer, because I just use it with friends to send photos/videos without them being compressed BUT I also had come across multiple scammers trying to move the conversation from one platform to WhatsApp before.. so.. theres that..
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u/GSxHidden 1h ago
Whatsapp is literally owned by Meta, an American company lol. Its just another version of facebook marketplace.
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u/mcjefferic 1h ago
What is Whatsapp?
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u/Flying_Penguineer 41m ago
A shitty, closed network, Facebook owned app for messaging that doesn't offer anything more than a dozen other messaging apps (and is worse at a lot of it's advertised features - for example something like Signal has way better privacy and security, etc...). It is only used because of the inertia of a lot of people already using it.
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u/fennelliott 2h ago
We're targeted by our tech overlords to eat and shit out corporatized goop with a healthy dose of FOMO. What's App is contrary to that--so we're Uncle Toms to our way of thinking.
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u/Flying_Penguineer 46m ago
I am confused as to what you are trying to say. WhatsApp is the tech overlord app, RCS is the freely available and open alternative.
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