this post was submitted on 27 Jul 2023
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Huh, in my opinion people simply moved away, because the underlying messenger were used less and less. Once everyone ran around with smartphones using WhatsApp, fewer and fewer people cared about MSN, ICQ, etc.
Not "everyone" uses Whatsapp though - I deleted mine after the Cambridge Analytica scandal and I know of a few others who also did so. As far as I know Whatsapp has still never changed their T&C to pass metadata upstream to Facebook.
This is really region dependent. In Europe (or at least the Netherlands) almost everybody with a smartphone uses Whatsapp
Talk to anyone in latin america, you must use whatsapp. There's no avoiding it. Some have tried Telegram a while ago, but most have reverted back to their usual whatsapp or facebook messenger. It's crazy.
I can vouch for this in a small town of like 5k people in zacatecas, Mexico. Everyone including government and businesses uses WhatsApp. You see the logo with phone numbers all over the place.
Same experience in Argentina and Paraguay
No, not regionally, as Whatsapp is probably used most. It is more individuals who decided not to use Facebook related products. Luckily, about 90% of my contacts are on Telegram. It's a bit sad that a proprietary product that leaks metadata could be so widely used. If there was going to be a single "one product" I'd rather prefer that to be an open standard protocol. Those protocols exist, but are not in broad use. But the W3C standard for social networking, really needs to also cover chat messengers.
Now? Sure. Back then WhatsApp (before it was bought by Facebook) was replacing SMS nearly everywhere.
People moved around, but often still use several apps even today. You might have a "main" app you use with friends (this used to be MSN Messenger for me back in the day; now it's Facebook Messenger), but there may be other people you chat to that use other apps. Facebook Messenger, Whatsapp, Wechat, Viber, Signal, Telegram, Slack, Discord, Skype, Kik... I feel like there's actually more major apps today than there used to be.