Why Americans don't use WhatsApp

More than 1.5 billion people use WhatsApp -- but in the U.S., its value isn't as appealing.

Up Your Knowledge!

[LeAlejx]

Like with the metric, health care, registration for voting, Americans just love to complicate their lives, that's why

[victorrodrigues]

Here in Brazil all the people use Whatsapp. My grandmother use WhatsApp. This is true

[TychoBrahe]

Most people in US:
For text you use SMS or the one for apple.
For video call you use Facetime or other similar.
For audio you use also another one.

- The rest all the world use WhatsApp to do all of that in same App. In the same message you can have all that, instead of many apps, that's burocratic.

[teentalks]

In india its opposite ... whatsapp is at next level and messenger is just there !

[leooo_]

In italy, if you own a phone, you own whatsapp. EVERYBODY uses it, even grandmas (fr). There is a little amount of people who use other apps (telegram) but only as a secondary app, because you have to use whatsapp, otherwise you can't chat with your friends

[wxyzz]

WhatsApp is the default messaging app in anything other than USA Canada China.

[LorenzoPrimiterra]

I haven't sent a SMS message in probably 8 years!

[tejaskulkarni]

There's one MAJOR factor-
People got used to texting and iMessaging. They became really cheap for Americans before whatsapp even entered the market. This was not the case for other countries though- In other countries texting was really expensive before whatsapp, especially to a different telecom provider or when texting to a phone in another province/state.

[AngelVargas]

WhatsApp dominated basically all the rest of the American continent, where SMS service used to be expensive and overpriced, in Mexico everyone and everybody uses WhatsApp, overtaking by far every other messaging app or service, it's ironic but, until 2016 WhatsApp used to be a service with a charge of one single dollar every year, but nobody who i know pay for that, it´s weird because i pay for the download of WhatsApp on my iPhone back on 2011.

[marinmarinhola]

An interesting side effect of this is that companies outside the US usually get free revenue. Why? Because most phone plans still include messaging, so you are technically being charge for a service you never use because of whatsapp

[casvandijk]

WhatsApp is also really popular in Europe because the iOS market share is way smaller, so less people use iMessage and texting is way more expensive then 4/5G. Which means WhatsApp is way cheaper then texting... I only ever use iMessage if I know the receiver of the message has an iPhone, and even then I usually use WhatsApp, because it's so commonly used

[thedarknightrisestimes]

Meanwhile 400 million people use whatsapp in india...😂

[korelamerikano]

I live in Colombia and I never send messages to people abroad. It's quite rare to that happen. So international isolation it's not the main reason. The main reason would be unlimited text from the previous 2 decades. Which make getting use to send sms, but sms never became an option outside the US and Canada

[tim]

So surprised in the comment area people assume WhatsApp is the default for the rest of the world outside the US. In S Korea it is kakaotalk, in Japan, Taiwan and Thailand it is Line, just to name a few.

[qkoojkg]

You are right. I am a diaspora living in the US. Most my friends had WhatsApp bc they kept in touch with people back home. I didn’t have anyone to keep in touch with so I never downloaded the app (I didn’t see the reason why when I can text my friends thru regular text) until recently. And the reason I finally downloaded it was out of curiosity and not to be left out since everyone i know was using it. The same thing with Telegram and Viber btw.

What makes me laugh sometimes is that all the apps serve the same purpose yet everyone downloads all of them 🙂 and text the same people using different apps lol

[jeffreyramos]

I always wondered about this! Thank you for breaking it down Uptin :D great video!

[GabbysLifeEver]

I am American and have seen online scammers try to use Whatsapp for their scams. Between that and not needing it because I have Messenger, I don't use it.

[allankempson]

In the UK we use iMessage and WhatsApp, I don't know anyone in the UK who has a smartphone who doesn't have WhatsApp. I remember when I got my first iPhone WhatsApp was one of the first apps my Mum helped me put on it so we could message for free as this was before iMessage came. Although I use both I do personally prefer WhatsApp because iMessage only works with other iPhone users, otherwise it goes through as a text, and that's expensive if I'm abroad or messaging one of my friends who's abroad.

[serganteddy]

I don't use it because of the internet con artists who go around preying on innocent people for money over there.

[lifewithphiwe]

In South Africa we use Whatsapp to communicate with each other. Not necessarily with someone outside the country.