Data plans exists, but there is no good middle ground. You have the unlimited 4g connection for 20 USD , or the WhatsApp only for a few dollars.
Most of the people, specially older age or people who already have unlimited data from work phones, do not need 4g unlimited connection, so why spend extra 15 USD (which is a lot in latin America), if you can still communicate perfectly fine via WhatsApp.
brunox@feddit.cl 10 months ago
Depends on the country, in mine data plans are not that expensive (add some asterisks to that). But they include those “whatsapp free” or some streaming service traffic with no cost to get the edge over other phone companies. All of them mostly have the whatsapp free thing.
I used to live in a different country and it did make a significant difference, as @desconectado@lemm.ee points out below.
Dyskolos@lemmy.zip 10 months ago
You mean the WA-traffic made a significant difference? But how? It’s still mostly just text, no?
Here data is expensive, but a messenger wouldn’t make a difference (unless you’d exchange a lot of large files) so that any provider would gain a benefit over the competition. Including TV or netflix or tidal hifi, that’d would. Weird…
brunox@feddit.cl 10 months ago
No, I don’t mean that. Whatsapp traffic (files i don’t think is included in the deal) is treated by the companies independently of other data traffic. You may not have a data plan, but still get a “whatsapp free” thingy, you can text for free via whatsapp without using data plans.
Dyskolos@lemmy.zip 10 months ago
Ahhh i see. So no data at all but still free WA. That does make sense. And is pretty mean 😊