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16 points

It seems absurd that Meta literally has them by the balls, and these people can’t do anything about it.

I don’t get this sentiment. If anything happens to WhatsApp, they’ll just switch to another IM. WhatsApp wasn’t the first to come along, and won’t be the last. How exactly does Meta have them by the balls?

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39 points

In some of those countries, it’s not really a choice. Like, WhatsApp is the only way of contacting a company’s customer care (via chat bots that run on it), colleges and universities may have study groups on it and teachers may hand out notes etc in those groups, also apparently it’s also the only way to contact even some government agencies.

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4 points

it’s a shame.

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2 points

I know, I’m from those countries. Like I said, we used other IM apps before WhatsApp came along, and if something changes we can use a new app. WhatsApp currently leads the market due to the network effect, but it doesn’t have us ‘by the balls’.

(Though the most likely successor would be WeChat, which is arguably much much worse in many ways)

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2 points
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Do you require WhatsApp to contact certain government agencies? Do you require WhatsApp to get access to customer support? Do you require WhatsApp to get access to lecture notes? No? Then you’re not from one of those countries.

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17 points

So many people use it, that the barrier to change to another application is high. They would need to fuck up on very large scale.

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-5 points

Yes, they currently have the market share, and network effect keeps them there. Nevertheless, my point was it’s not a monopoly, so how does Meta have everybody 'by the balls"?

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1 point

Network effect might as well be a monopoly until the network kills itself.

I take issue with the concept of one company owning an entire communications network in the first place. Federation is a step in the right direction but it’s not enough yet.

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13 points

I remember listening to a podcast that talked of how in the Philippines (I think it was), Facebook is the internet, because Meta/FB effectively subsidised the carriers into allowing FB access to not use up any data allowance. As a result, if all you do is go on FB, you don’t pay a penny. If WhatsApp is included in this, then yeah, you’re locked in with no real alternative.

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1 point

Oh right. Not quite nowadays, they get subsidised from multiple companies, including Google (YouTube) and such. I hate to say this, but WeChat would probably be happy to jump in and grab some market share if Meta does something egregiously dumb

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2 points

It’s an issue of userbase.

WhatsApp can and will get away with a lot before it drives users to a mass exodus, when messaging should have just been an open protocol from the start.

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