WhatsApp introduces ads in its app

Yup. Non-traveling US Americans mostly won’t understand how critical WhatsApp is in many parts of the world, for more than a decade. It’s much much stronger than the iMessage norm in the US.

Businesses put WhatsApp numbers on their stores, and it’s often the only way to get a hold of a person. I would bet it’s more used than email, especially for young people. If WhatsApp went down for a week, it would seriously impede normal societal functions. It’s pretty much de-facto standard and arguably critical infrastructure.

What about non traveling Chinese?

I'd say Chinese people are aware that their Internet is pretty different from the rest of the world.

Americans tend to believe everyone is trying very hard to be like them (when they think about the rest of the world at all).

Ironically WhatsApp is also American.

Your comment is snide and unnecessary. Do Chinese walk around thinking they want to be more American? No they don't. Americans certainly dont believe everyone is trying very hard to be like them - typically go about their own business. Chinese may be influenced by western shows and movies but everybody is influenced by the shows that they watch. Why do Americans need to think about the rest of the world? Do Chinese think about the rest of the world? Your hatred really shows in your comment.

But it gained way more traction in other parts of the world, it's the default messaging platform in South America for EVERYTHING.

I have never seen an iMessage.

Your reading of GP's comment is quite uncharitable. I did not read any "hatred" (of nationals from either country) in his post.

> It’s much much stronger than the iMessage norm in the US.

I've lived in the US all my life, and I didn't even know there was a norm at all, so that's not much of a threshold.

Hacker News Commenters tend to believe it's possible to generalize hundreds of millions of people at once after seeing maybe a few thousand of them.

It's less prominent if you were already 20-30 when the first iPhone came out. In slightly-affluent primary schools, owning an iPhone was your inroad to a cult of iMessage games and insular group chats. If you didn't beg mommy and daddy to fork over $600 and tax to Verizon then you didn't join the cool group chats.

It sounds petty, but not very abnormal for growing up in America.

I know exactly 3 people that use emails for personal human to human comunications. I am sure that it is more common in other slices of the world.

Respectfully, you can't extrapolate a single experience to _every_ "slightly-affluent primary school". Even the most miniscule of cultural differences can and will lead to different outcomes such as "did you just judge me for a green bubble? what sort of asshole thinks that's worth judging someone over?" (group proceeds to make fun of the iPhone user)

> Even the most miniscule of cultural differences can and will lead to different outcomes

I certainly didn't say it was the only outcome. I switched schools three times in my youth, and each place I went had different kids but the same materialist obsessions. Some people did mock the Apple users, for what little it did to get them into the iMessage chats. Every school I went to had an 'iPhone in group' though, and if you didn't have the right phone you didn't get to chat, period.

My larger point, which you really don't need to extrapolate for, is that Apple knew they were making a FOMO-based service that would predate on kids and adults with maligned priorities. They understood the social clusterfuck that they engineered, and marketed the hell out of it; because it worked, bragging about iMessage does sell iPhones.

Fair enough. I went to public school and (I believe) more people do in general. In my particular public school it was frowned upon to brag about your privilege as many had less fortunate upbringings. Mind you, this was still in a (relatively) affluent area - so general amenities were okay but many people still didn't come from extravagant or even mild wealth.

Excessive privilege really fucks with people's worldview.