• Metz@lemmy.world
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          2 years ago

          It is extremely widespread in Europe. In Germany, a good 50 million people (out of 80) use it every day. I would describe myself as very tech-savvy and privacy-conscious and would normally never use it , but since everyone in the family and friends use it without exception, there is no escape. plus quite a lot of business now use whatsapp for contact / support.

          • Brunacho@feddit.cl
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            2 years ago

            Same here (South America). You can not use it yourself but it will mostly keep you out of the loop on everything. Most of the phone companies don’t charge you whatsapp message data just to make it more inescapable.

              • Brunacho@feddit.cl
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                2 years ago

                Depends on the country, in mine data plans are not that expensive (add some asterisks to that). But they include those “whatsapp free” or some streaming service traffic with no cost to get the edge over other phone companies. All of them mostly have the whatsapp free thing.

                I used to live in a different country and it did make a significant difference, as @[email protected] points out below.

                  • Brunacho@feddit.cl
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                    2 years ago

                    You mean the WA-traffic made a significant difference?

                    No, I don’t mean that. Whatsapp traffic (files i don’t think is included in the deal) is treated by the companies independently of other data traffic. You may not have a data plan, but still get a “whatsapp free” thingy, you can text for free via whatsapp without using data plans.