Submitted 1 year ago by muaveri@lemmy.world to nostupidquestions@lemmy.world
… is it possible to do any kind of business and/or have regular conversations without having to use whatsapp as a main way of communication?
If you’d like you can say in what country you’re living.
Yes? And America? Wtf kinda country forces whatsapp?
No one said it is forced. It ia relatable to me as I live in East Europe and all my people use WhatsApp. It really is the main way of communication.
Businesses also use WhatsApp. Like boutique or handmade good stores, to have special requests or, for anything you can name as a conversation.
We have family group in WhatsApp. Any special occasion or events, we communicate on that group.
Like, 10-15 years before, it was MSN or equivalents. It evolved to WhatsApp. Telegram, too.
No one said it is forced The OP uses the word forced in the title
I don’t think the implication is that the government is forcing anyone to use WhatsApp, but that in some places it controls enough share of the messaging market that people are forced to use it because that’s what everyone else is using.
UK here. Most people I work with will have Signal or Telegram. However my kids and the parents groups and schools all use WhatsApp.
None of them could get their friends to switch from WhatsApp. Nobody gives a shit at all about Meta and their dodgy data practices. Convenience is king. “aLL mY frIEnDs aRE oN WHatSaPp!”
Super-frustrating and makes me feel pretty helpless tbh.
Basically the same here. WhatsApp is basically “dial-a-boomer” on my phone.
Little sad that Signal dropped SMS support, but I get it.
I’m in the US. Never used Whatsapp in my life, and don’t know anyone that does. I just text people. It would be weird if someone tried to get me to use WhatsApp and tbh I’d probably just say no.
+1, in the US Whatsapp is the thing you download when you’re traveling abroad, and has no other presence at all
USA here - I work for a fortune 500 technology industry company…We use MS Teams internally for most stuff, mostly use MS Teams for organized conf calls internally and with customers, and then use regular text messaging for one-off messages with each other and customers. We don’t use whatsapp at all for anything - I am pretty sure I don’t even have a whatsapp account.
‘MS Teams’ Shudders
Unfortunately, after you eliminate all the collab services blatantly handing their data to government-backed built-in spy services, and all the services with off-shore backend servers, and all the services with poor track records for security, MS Teams is one of the only options left…as shitty as it is. Our customers insist on it, so we bend to their will.
My company used to use WhatsApp for official communication. Then it came out that Facebook was going to start collecting a whole crap ton of information from users, so I downloaded Signal and told my small group of coworkers that WhatsApp was not secure for official communication. They all downloaded it and eventually the whole company moved to it.
All it takes is a few people to switch over in a friend group or work setting and for them to advocate for its benefits to get large groups to move. Gotta keep pushing for it
I’m in the US and we use SMS instead of any specific app. It’s a pretty shitty protocol, but it’s at least not tied to any company.
Maybe in 2040 we’ll get an upgraded protocol when companies megacorps actually decide to try and bridge protocols.
Modern Android devices already use RCS, we just need Apple to get on board.
Apple is well known for their love of open standards, of course…
Unfortunately, iMessage’s proprietary format is far more common than RCS in the US, so it’s unlikely anything is going to change without government action
Though I wouldn’t say Androids get it. More like Google Messages and a very few select apps get RCS. It’s a standard protocol in theory. In practice, not so much. I think there’s like 3 total apps. You’ll probably never see a FOSS RCS app, or one that isn’t tied to a big corp. Server implentations of RCS also aren’t standard, but most use Google Jibe.
That’s exactly what I was getting at
Australia here.
None of my friends or clients have ever contacted me in whatsapp.
I use telegram with my friends.
In SEA it seems like everyone is using Line. Fuck me I hate line.
Japan. I’ve never used whatsapp. It is neither popular here nor important for business communication.
Norway. For whatever reason, Whatsapp hasn’t really taken off as far as I know. Instead people are all over the place with messaging services. Snapchat, Facebook Messenger, Instagram DM, Signal, Telegram and SMS. I’m sure there’s more.
The Netherlands and I barely use anything else to communicate with friends and family. Whatsapp is pretty much the only means of communication people use here.
Same in Belgium and Germany IME.
U.S., and I don’t know how many businesses use it, but I think it’s quite possible to avoid using it socially. I’m not sure if I even know anyone who does use it, and certainly no one has asked me to get one.
German here. My last employer was visibly confused when I told him that I neither have a Whatsapp account nor a smartphone, and didn’t want either one. Apparently it was his preferred way of changing shifts last minute and he was pissed that I didn’t want to participate in that bullshit. So you want to send me a notification after effing midnight that I have to come in at 5 AM instead of 6 AM? Miss me with that shit.
Luckily I found a better job elsewhere (and they do NOT require any social media accounts - if they want to change something, they call me and ASK whether I am ok with it).
That’s crazy, my employer won’t even call my cell phone unless it’s a dire emergency, which pretty much never happens.
México. Everyone uses whatsapp. For personal communication or work. Businesses have their accounts you can order stuff through. Nobody uses SMS or pretty much any other chat app.
A lot of people use Facebook messenger for marketplace.
I hate 90% of meta, but I use WhatsApp and IG because everyone uses it.
Filipino living in Singapore, married to a Japanese:
Philippines - Facebook Messenger (they love Facebook there) Singapore - WhatsApp (everyone uses it here, especially businesses, so it’s hard not to have it installed) Japan - Line (I think it’s because of the stickers and emojis?)
South America, Brazil. Everything has been taken by meta. From private to business. If you don’t use it, you get that look as if you were some strange unfit person. Try to challenge somebody asking why there is no alternative, you’ll get that look again. Doctors, lawyers, real estate, rentals, pharmacy, schools, online classes, local business, everyday communications, online purchases, receipts, invoices, returning items you bought, financial advices, government related stuff (gov won’t do a damn thing to include another official channel of communicating, it suites them very well, “Please use whatsapp for your convince, we want you to be satisfied”, not the other way around. You ain’t survive without this crap. Don’t resist or else.
Salvadorian here. Ppl here definetly use whatsapp as a pretty much jack of all trades, including work stuff. Weirdly enough people don’t care about privacy, despite the fact that any other messenger app is far way superior that whatsapp, people just don’t use it or put any excuse to not even try.
Hell, if you tell em “I don’t have an account/wa installed” like myself, they pretty try to exclude you or advice you to install it and to stop being a pain in the ass to deal with, it’s just plain ridiculous
In Italy everyone and their mom use Whatsapp, even if I need to communicate with a business like for ordering a medicine at a pharmacy, I can call them on their land line (absolutely no thanks) or I can send them a Whatsapp. I have telegram just for public group chats and matrix for the fediverse group chats, no one irl use signal or matrix, a few have telegram but WhatsApp is the standard here
Yes, whatsapp isn’t popular here, but we are forced to use Facebook Messenger so Zuck’s got it covered.
Philippines.
I’m from Vietnam. It’s the same here. Facebook seems to be really popular on Asia huh?
It’s a tragedy. I’m trying to get my (filipino) mom to try signal haha.
Estonian here.
I use WhatsApp to talk to my mom and we aren’t allowed to use it for work. Only our locally hosted Skype instance for business talk, even teams is off limits for more secret stuff since its not fully locally hosted.
US here. Over only used Whatsapp a few times. Everyone I know is either via iMessage or telegram. Businesses mainly use Facebook messenger.
Lost a bunch of contacts after ditching WhatsApp a few years back but eventually managed to get most of my valuable ones to use Signal.
Work-wise everyone uses WhatsApp, for example my team has a group chat that I am not a part of, so I lose some info on that side.
When traveling I also get a lot of prompts to use WhatsApp for example two hotels we stayed at this year did Concierge via WhatsApp.
P.S. Shameless plugin for /m/Signal
Yep, in Brazil it’s the unwritten rule that you must have WhatsApp. SMS or iMessage are usually seeing as something bad and telegram for the “people that want to protest “
NW Europe here.
I can’t stop using WhatsApp without taking a significant hit to my social life.
French here.
I chose to “force” my way out of WhatsApp and facebook messenger. All my friends and family used it, as well as some colleagues. I managed to move my family group chat to signal, and then chose to lose all the other group chats and see how it would work after a few months. In the end, the most important people to me moved with me. As for the other ones, it made planning for events and such a bit harder, but it didn’t prevent me from keeping in touch with anybody.
Yes, I don’t really use apps at all to communicate with people I know. The last time I used Whatsapp was when I was dating this girl who originally from Brazil. After we broke up I never had a need to use it.
Most of my friends are in signal, but I still use WhatsApp for those who aren’t, and for my family. Never really used WhatsApp to communicate with business. (UK)
Canada. Email, SMS.
Yes, whatsapp is not popular in USA. An iPhone is basically expected for messaging though.
Lol no it’s not. I’ve never even had someone ask me what kind of phone I have.
Nobody asks, you just get left out of group chats if you don’t have a blue bubble. Also can’t facetime.
The iphone part is not even close to being somewhat true. There are more Android users the iPhone users.
Worldwide, yes, there are more Android users. In the US, almost 60% of people use iOS.
My social life took a nose dive after uninstalling it.
And then a lot of communication ran through my wife’s account (she was connected to everyone and told me about what’s going on).
Germany.
Sacrificing your social life to oneup Zuckerberg is a weird hill to die on.
Dove9848@lemmy.world 1 year ago
USA here. No we don’t use WhatsApp at all. I communicate with all friends and family on Telegram or SMS. For work we use Slack. I refuse to have any Facebook anything installed on my phone (I don’t use social media anyway…except for Lemmy now I guess if that counts haha)
Cethin@lemmy.zip 1 year ago
I’m a proponent of breaking social media into two categories. There should be “personal media” or something where you use your real name and information, and some other name for social media that you use an alias. The fact Reddit/Lemmy are in the same category as Facebook seems dumb. We need a better way to describe it. Depending on how you define it, news sites with comment sections could be called social media if you wanted to, but it’s clearly something different than Facebook.