Can you easily communicate in your country (business/private life) without being involuntarily forced to use whatsapp?

USA here. No we don't use WhatsApp at all. I communicate with all friends and family on Telegram or SMS. For work we use Slack. I refuse to have any Facebook anything installed on my phone (I don't use social media anyway....except for Lemmy now I guess if that counts haha)

I'm a proponent of breaking social media into two categories. There should be "personal media" or something where you use your real name and information, and some other name for social media that you use an alias. The fact Reddit/Lemmy are in the same category as Facebook seems dumb. We need a better way to describe it. Depending on how you define it, news sites with comment sections could be called social media if you wanted to, but it's clearly something different than Facebook.

UK here. Most people I work with will have Signal or Telegram. However my kids and the parents groups and schools all use WhatsApp.

None of them could get their friends to switch from WhatsApp. Nobody gives a shit at all about Meta and their dodgy data practices. Convenience is king. "aLL mY frIEnDs aRE oN WHatSaPp!"

They will literally be excluded if they don't use it.

Super-frustrating and makes me feel pretty helpless tbh.

Basically the same here. WhatsApp is basically "dial-a-boomer" on my phone.

Little sad that Signal dropped SMS support, but I get it.

I'm in the US. Never used Whatsapp in my life, and don't know anyone that does. I just text people. It would be weird if someone tried to get me to use WhatsApp and tbh I'd probably just say no.

At work we use Slack and Google Meet.

+1, in the US Whatsapp is the thing you download when you're traveling abroad, and has no other presence at all

I'm from Europe, and for years I'd been using WhatsApp because everyone expected me to even though I didn't feel comfortable using it at all (because I care about my privacy and apparently not all of my friends/family members do). At some point I was forced to accept new terms that basically said it was okay for them to sell my data and that's where I drew the line and told everyone that I would no longer be using WhatsApp and that if they wanted to reach me they could call me, text me or message me on Telegram. I immediately uninstalled it.

I noticed friends and family found it a bit odd and inconvenient that I'd stopped using WhatsApp. And many companies seem to use WhatsApp to contact their customers (why can't they just email me instead...) and it seems they automatically assume everyone uses it, which I find a bit annoying. But ever since uninstalling it no one has been able to convince me to reinstall it and I plan to keep it that way.

US here. Companies I work for use Teams, Zoom, Outlook, WebEx, RingCentral, GChat for comms.

Personally among friends and family, we use Signal.

Nobody I know uses WhatsApp or even has it installed.

USA here - I work for a fortune 500 technology industry company...We use MS Teams internally for most stuff, mostly use MS Teams for organized conf calls internally and with customers, and then use regular text messaging for one-off messages with each other and customers. We don't use whatsapp at all for anything - I am pretty sure I don't even have a whatsapp account.

None of my friends use whatsapp either. I communicate with most of my friends and family via text message, a few of my more paranoid friends will only chat via "Signal", and then for bigger group chats we use Discord.

'MS Teams' Shudders
- Unfortunately, after you eliminate all the collab services blatantly handing their data to government-backed built-in spy services, and all the services with off-shore backend servers, and all the services with poor track records for security, MS Teams is one of the only options left...as shitty as it is. Our customers insist on it, so we bend to their will.

My company used to use WhatsApp for official communication. Then it came out that Facebook was going to start collecting a whole crap ton of information from users, so I downloaded Signal and told my small group of coworkers that WhatsApp was not secure for official communication. They all downloaded it and eventually the whole company moved to it.

All it takes is a few people to switch over in a friend group or work setting and for them to advocate for its benefits to get large groups to move. Gotta keep pushing for it.

Edit: This is the US where most people use SMS for personal communication though.

Norway. For whatever reason, Whatsapp hasn't really taken off as far as I know. Instead people are all over the place with messaging services. Snapchat, Facebook Messenger, Instagram DM, Signal, Telegram and SMS. I'm sure there's more.

Australia here.

None of my friends or clients have ever contacted me in whatsapp.

I use telegram with my friends.

In SEA it seems like everyone is using Line. Fuck me I hate line.

German here. My last employer was visibly confused when I told him that I neither have a Whatsapp account nor a smartphone, and didn't want either one. Apparently it was his preferred way of changing shifts last minute and he was pissed that I didn't want to participate in that bullshit. So you want to send me a notification after effing midnight that I have to come in at 5 AM instead of 6 AM? Miss me with that shit.

Luckily I found a better job elsewhere (and they do NOT require any social media accounts - if they want to change something, they call me and ASK whether I am ok with it).

That's crazy, my employer won't even call my cell phone unless it's a dire emergency, which pretty much never happens.
- My employer is the same and they added it to my pay when they did have to once.

I'm in the US and we use SMS instead of any specific app. It's a pretty shitty protocol, but it's at least not tied to any company.

Maybe in 2040 we'll get an upgraded protocol when companies megacorps actually decide to try and bridge protocols.

Modern Android devices already use RCS, we just need Apple to get on board.
- Apple is well known for their love of open standards, of course…
  
  Edit: I really wish they would. I have an iPhone and cannot stand how they hold back multimedia messages when non-Apple phones are included.
- Unfortunately, iMessage's proprietary format is far more common than RCS in the US, it works better than RCS, and apple makes a lot of money using it to keep people tied to their ecosystem, so it's unlikely anything is going to change without government action
- Though I wouldn't say Androids get it. More like Google Messages and a very few select apps get RCS. It's a standard protocol in theory. In practice, not so much. I think there's like 3 total apps. You'll probably never see a FOSS RCS app, or one that isn't tied to a big corp. Server implentations of RCS also aren't standard, but most use Google Jibe.
- That's exactly what I was getting at

Japan. I've never used whatsapp. It is neither popular here nor important for business communication.

South America, Brazil. Everything has been taken by meta. From private to business. If you don't use it, you get that look as if you were some strange unfit person. Try to challenge somebody asking why there is no alternative, you'll get that look again. Doctors, lawyers, real estate, rentals, pharmacy, schools, online classes, local business, everyday communications, online purchases, receipts, invoices, returning items you bought, financial advices, government related stuff (gov won't do a damn thing to include another official channel of communicating, it suites them very well, "Please use whatsapp for your convince, we want you to be satisfied", not the other way around. You ain't survive without this crap. Don't resist or else.

That is fucking horrifying. How did it ever get to that point?
- Cellular carriers were charging disproportionately for sms and calls, so people where looking for cheap alternatives and unfortunately meta/facebook zucced the entire nation by being in the right place at the right time (with enormous help of word-of-mouth marketing that sealed the deal and some additional help coming from meta I suppose). Government never cared nor questioned why everything was provided for free, zero cost, no questions asked and regular folks didn't have time or even bother to do some research. And on the top of it, local carriers to make things even better, introduced the zero-rate for zucced app which basically elevated this crapp to some divine status. And now we have wechat called ZAP, as a solution for every kind of communication. Nowadays even if you proved that this crapp is doing some harm to you in alot of ways, nobody would care. It's as normal as flipping on a light switch, simply nobody think about it anymore, it's there and that's about it.

The Netherlands and I barely use anything else to communicate with friends and family. Whatsapp is pretty much the only means of communication people use here.

Same in Belgium and Germany IME.

USA here. Only reason I have WhatsApp is to stay in touch with friends in Europe and South America. Not a single one of my American friends or relatives uses it.

Yep. USA is really just iMessage/SMS, with maybe Discord/GroupMe sometimes
- My friend group uses google the same way apple users use imessage. The implementation has changed many times over the years (google chat, sms integration, hangouts chat, whatever), but it's always basically been the same thing and it's usable from any device. That's my main complaint about ~~signal ~~ and telegram: if I'm at home, forget using my stupid tiny phone, lemme do it from my PC that I'm probably on anyway.
  
  edit: tried to strike out signal, but it's ignoring the formatting I guess.

We use whatsapp at work because a majority of people have iPhones, not an issue but group chats with Android users (half of the department I'm working for, myself included) cause issues with the actual texts.

From what I've looked into, simplified, Apple is at fault for not properly implementing cross-compatible version of imessage. (Iirc, it's RTC but can't quite remember all at the moment)

Salvadorian here. Ppl here definetly use whatsapp as a pretty much jack of all trades, including work stuff. Weirdly enough people don't care about privacy, despite the fact that any other messenger app is far way superior that whatsapp, people just don't use it or put any excuse to not even try.

Hell, if you tell em "I don't have an account/wa installed" like myself, they pretty try to exclude you or advice you to install it and to stop being a pain in the ass to deal with, it's just plain ridiculous

In Italy everyone and their mom use Whatsapp, even if I need to communicate with a business like for ordering a medicine at a pharmacy, I can call them on their land line (absolutely no thanks) or I can send them a Whatsapp. I have telegram just for public group chats and matrix for the fediverse group chats, no one irl use signal or matrix, a few have telegram but WhatsApp is the standard here

México. Everyone uses whatsapp. For personal communication or work. Businesses have their accounts you can order stuff through. Nobody uses SMS or pretty much any other chat app.

A lot of people use Facebook messenger for marketplace.

I hate 90% of meta, but I use WhatsApp and IG because everyone uses it.

Filipino living in Singapore, married to a Japanese:

Philippines - Facebook Messenger (they love Facebook there) Singapore - WhatsApp (everyone uses it here, especially businesses, so it's hard not to have it installed) Japan - Line (I think it's because of the stickers and emojis?)

Norway. I've never used WhatsApp and don't know anybody that uses it. Everybody is on Facebook messenger, snapchat or discord.

U.S., and I don’t know how many businesses here use it, but I think it’s quite possible to avoid using it socially here. I’m not sure if I even know anyone who does use it, and certainly no one has asked me to get one.

Yes, whatsapp isn't popular here, but we are forced to use Facebook Messenger so Zuck's got it covered.

Philippines.

I'm from Vietnam. It's the same here. Facebook seems to be really popular on Asia huh?
- I blame Farmville and Zynga for that, by the time Facebook introduced video games in there, Friendster got abandoned.
It's a tragedy. I'm trying to get my (filipino) mom to try signal haha.

America. Most everyone uses SMS. Unlimited SMS texting is standard for nearly all cell plans.

Australia, I have never used whatsapp

French here.

I chose to "force" my way out of WhatsApp and facebook messenger. All my friends and family used it, as well as some colleagues. I managed to move my family group chat to signal, and then chose to lose all the other group chats and see how it would work after a few months. In the end, the most important people to me moved with me. As for the other ones, it made planning for events and such a bit harder, but it didn't prevent me from keeping in touch with anybody.

NW Europe here.

I can’t stop using WhatsApp without taking a significant hit to my social life.

Dutchman. Whatsapp is not used for business in any instance I am aware off, nor should it be because of many compliance reasons. But private conversations/group chats are next to impossible without whatsapp.

Some companies definitely use WhatsApp unfortunately
As an American, the first half is in line with my experience. As far as group chats, we all use google for that.

Canada. Email, SMS.

Estonian here.

I use WhatsApp to talk to my mom and we aren't allowed to use it for work. Only our locally hosted Skype instance for business talk, even teams is off limits for more secret stuff since its not fully locally hosted.

When I installed Whatsapp and Viber my social life got back on track. I was wondering for few years where everyone was.

East europe.

Yes it is possible and those people because of which you would be involuntarily forced to use whatsapp aren't woth it anyways

Germany

Yes, whatsapp is not popular in USA. An iPhone is basically expected for messaging though.

Lol no it's not. I've never even had someone ask me what kind of phone I have.
- Nobody asks, you just get left out of group chats if you don’t have a blue bubble. Also can’t facetime.
The iphone part is not even close to being somewhat true. There are more Android users the iPhone users.
- Worldwide, yes, there are more Android users. In the US, almost 60% of people use iOS.

Lost a bunch of contacts after ditching WhatsApp a few years back but eventually managed to get most of my valuable ones to use Signal.
Work-wise everyone uses WhatsApp, for example my team has a group chat that I am not a part of, so I am losing some info on that side.
When traveling I also get a lot of prompts to use WhatsApp for example two hotels we stayed at this year did concierge only via WhatsApp.

P.S. Shameless plugin for /m/Signal

Yep, in Brazil it’s the unwritten rule that you must have WhatsApp. SMS or iMessage are usually seeing as something bad and telegram for the “people that want to protest “

Most of my friends are in signal, but I still use WhatsApp for those who aren't, and for my family. Never really used WhatsApp to communicate with business. (UK)

I wish my contractor subby group admin would use discord. We will have several site visits which need up to six people in attendance and there is only the whatsapp for organising it. I often think it would be easier to have a discord with different rooms for each site visit. That would mean id only reveive notifications about my specific not work and not every single interaction.

US here. Over only used Whatsapp a few times. Everyone I know is either via iMessage or telegram. Businesses mainly use Facebook messenger.

Murican here: Yes, I don't really use apps at all to communicate with people I know outside of work. The last time I used Whatsapp was when I was dating this girl who originally from Brazil. After we broke up I never had a need to use it.

In Panama literally everyone uses it.

Australian here. Don't know of anyone who uses WhatsApp. Different organizations and demographics uses a range of different platforms like Facebook messenger, MS Teams, Slack, Discord etc. From my perspective those are all about the same level.

At least most official comms either government or business is SMS, phone, or email.

Happy for other Aussies to correct me of course, thsrs just my quick perspective

Canada here. Professional communication at work is done via email. Sending coworkers nasty memes throughout the day is done by iMessage/FB Messenger. Outside of work it’s all iMessage (or SMS with the two people I know who don’t have iOS devices). I don’t know a single person that has ever used WhatsApp.

US here, and yes, easily. I have WhatsApp installed on my phone but it's probably been over a year since I used it last. SMS, email, and Facebook Messenger are the media of choice in my social circle. Work communication is over Slack and email.

But if someone wanted to use WhatsApp to talk to me, I'd use it without being bothered much.

We get it Americans, you don’t use Whatsapp.

Unfortunately in most of the world it is pretty much required in many cases - I’m part of 3 work related Whatsapp groups (2 mandatory), many University groups (not mandatory technically, but much information posted there isn’t posted anywhere else), and most people I know mainly use Whatsapp as their IM platform.

Many businesses use Whatsapp for contact too these days.

I'm in Canada. My s/o once had an employer force their staff to use WhatsApp and it was horrible, lol. The notifications were constant and the whole getting work stuff while at home was annoying. But she never had that happen before or after that one employer.

I've never had an employer use WhatsApp, they communicate by text if I need to be reached when I'm not working (rare for me), or email/Teams if I'm at work.

Microsoft Teams is the official communication tool for business where I work, no need to use whatsapp tho a few colleagues use it for fluff, as for personal/family, some of my family use whatsapp but I don't (I use Discord), if we want to talk to each other we use "good old-fashioned" phone calls :D

Bulgarian here. Telegram, Viber and Instagram chat are infinitely more popular than WhatsApp for private use. As for business, no clue.

For now I haven't had to use it for work or school, but it's really common for organizations and student groups, so I'd be missing on a lot if I completely stopped using it (France).

Japan here. We don’t use WhatsApp at all. Line tends to be forced down our throats, though. I’ve so far managed to avoid using it but do get weird looks when people want to communicate over Line and I refuse.

This is mainly a China thing no? Any chemical suppliers we contact use WA