> Where am I wrong? What am I not seeing?
The killer application are the group chats. Normies can't make an email group, or remember to reply to all, or even make a Yahoo! Group [dead] or Google Group [dead?].
It's very easy to setup a group in WhatsApp and keep the member list updated.
For bonus points, it's very difficult to Ctr-C the info in WhatsApp, it's easier to press the arrow and forward the message to another WhatsApp group.
Once you have all your groups in WhatsApp, it's easier to use it for everything.
PS: Also, a few eons ago in many countries SMS had a cost, and WhatsApp was free, it was so another good point to use it.
> PS: Also, a few eons ago in many countries SMS had a cost, and WhatsApp was free, it was so another good point to use it.
That was the starting point for sure in many European countries.
The worst part is that it wasn't even free, you were still paying for the data unless you were on wifi. Standard text messaging was so expensive (and so terrible) that data rates obliterated standard phone services in both quality and price.
I remember paying 23 cents per SMS. Still, carriers were somehow surprised when people moved away from them.
Funnily enough, now that RCS is slowly making its way back, people seem to forget that free unlimited messages are hardly guaranteed with these services. Can't wait for the backlash when the first iPhone users start getting charged for RCS messages with their Android contacts.