I've been using Whatsapp since 2010 and this is the first time I've considered dropping it; all I want is an easy to use chat client. What the hell were they thinking? I'm no expert but I would guess that >50% of their userbase does not want this feature at all. My grandma uses Whatsapp!
I think this could be the beginning of the end for Whatsapp's ubiquity. It's such a shame as Whatsapp has such insane market penetration here (UK/Spain) that it is going to be a huge mess to try to switch to an alternative. I literally haven't received an SMS from a friend in years.
Here in Italy Telegram is slowly gaining traction. Even the municipality in my city uses it (for traffic notices and other warnings), very useful.
Bonus points: bots, Gif search and stickers!
WhatsApp can be more than just a messaging alterative. So far they've added small features incrementally and it would seem have been successful with this approach.
This features genuinely adds to the user experience and its nice to have a way of sharing statuses with most if not all of my contact list as opposed to a select few that use snap chat.
My only gripe is the privacy concerns, I can't help but feel Facebook will combine all data one day and most worryingly in retrospect.
>> "This features genuinely adds to the user experience and its nice to have a way of sharing statuses with most if not all of my contact list as opposed to a select few that use snap chat."
This feature is now in TWO Facebook owned apps (WhatsApp + Instagram) and I recently read that they're also bringing it to Facebook (currently testing with some users). So now I have three identical products from the same company. It doesn't make sense to update the story in each app. Some friends will update one over the other and now I have three stories to check. That's the opposite of adding to the user experience in my opinion. Give them a bit more time and I'll have three identical Facebook apps just with different icons on my phone.
Based on the Legal policy update a while ago[1].They should be planning to do much more than social features. I (personally) expect something like the We Chat model.
My wife and her friends use WhatsApp for community and event organization. I look at this as more of a response to user demand than overstepping by Facebook.
Not the OP, but here are just a few things that immediately sprang to my mind:
* Group MMS messages are a nightmare so people in my demographic often use GroupMe to facilitate them
* I'm not even sure if attaching images and other media on MMS messages is supposed to work consistently. I usually end up with an image that has been severely degraded in quality
* No read notifications, which can be useful if you goose to enable them on WhatsApp, Signal, etc.
* Poor security, I would assume that SMS is far easier for law enforcement to illegally bug
* Conversing with people who are in different countries as SMS typically invokes outrageous charges, and my mobile provider includes 2G data in most countries
* Can't use SMS on a computer unless through something like Google Voice, which isn't a pure SMS solution
* Message history backups are much better documented on WhatsApp/Signal, so that I've never bothered to figure out how to restore SMS history after I get a new phone or install a new ROM on my phone (Android)
Going back to SMS is like going back to the dark ages after getting used to a proper web-based chat client. As far as I can tell pretty much the only place where technical users still use SMS is the US.
This is why I wish I could get my wife to switch to Signal with me. But she doesn't want to check two different apps for the same thing. Everyone else she would chat with would be using just SMS/iMessage. I really really wish apps like this would pick up more traction here in the States.
SMS are not only being charged in developing countries. lol e.g. Spain has symmetric 300Mb (home) connections for ~50€/month but SMS are still being charged.
I think this could be the beginning of the end for Whatsapp's ubiquity. It's such a shame as Whatsapp has such insane market penetration here (UK/Spain) that it is going to be a huge mess to try to switch to an alternative. I literally haven't received an SMS from a friend in years.