[HN Gopher] How WhatsApp for business changed the world
___________________________________________________________________
How WhatsApp for business changed the world
Author : surprisetalk
Score : 52 points
Date : 2024-12-09 14:57 UTC (2 days ago)
(HTM) web link (restofworld.org)
(TXT) w3m dump (restofworld.org)
| philipwhiuk wrote:
| > Newton-Rex said privacy is "in the DNA" of WhatsApp and that
| the company is trying to clearly communicate with users about
| what privacy protections WhatsApp offers and where.
|
| This is bunk. If someone is added to a Group Chat they get
| everyone's phone number. There's near zero privacy for Groups and
| Communities.
|
| This sort of article is a puff-piece for WhatsApp.
| thunderbong wrote:
| My understanding is groups and communities are for people who
| already know each other directly or indirectly, like a mutual
| friend or parents of students of the same class.
|
| WhatsApp for Business is something separate from this.
| Angostura wrote:
| You want all the parents in your kid's class to know your
| phone number? No thanks
| ForHackernews wrote:
| Yes? Phone numbers are not top secret information. My
| schools always had a student directory that listed every
| student's home phone number and their parents' mobiles. We
| used to have phone books that listed everyone in town's
| phone number.
| NBJack wrote:
| That and the random "group invite" I get that pedals crypto.
| Spam _and_ my number being disclosed to a bunch of random
| victims!
| Angostura wrote:
| Also, it won't work properly unless you give it full access to
| your Contacts
| Zak wrote:
| I noticed last year it stopped allowing me to use location
| sharing if I have the permission set to ask every time. It
| wants the permission permanently enabled.
|
| It seems like they're trying to get people to enable extra
| permissions beyond what it really needs.
| gruez wrote:
| At least on iOS it works fine without contacts. You'll have
| to enter all numbers manually, but messaging works as
| expected. On android it's more annoying, because there's no
| way to explicitly enter phone numbers, but you can use the
| wa.me/[insert phone phone number here] to work around it.
| ponector wrote:
| privacy is "in the DNA" of WhatsApp so you cannot delete a
| message there.
|
| Same privacy as Facebook offers.
|
| Telegram is much better than any other popular messenger. Pity
| it is owned by Russians.
| luuurker wrote:
| Telegram doesn't use end-to-end encryption by default, so it
| would be a bad alternative to WhatsApp even if it was owned
| by Mother Teresa. At least if you care about privacy.
| kburman wrote:
| Due to WhatsApp for Business, my inbox is constantly flooded with
| spam and scams. Companies register hundreds of numbers, and no
| matter how many I block, they always find new ones to message me.
| The worst part is that reporting and blocking seem completely
| ineffective on WhatsApp.
| paxys wrote:
| You can choose to not let unknown numbers message you. I have
| no idea why that isn't the default.
| bittwiddle wrote:
| While great for a personal Whatsapp, this kind of defeats the
| point of using it for a business.
| thisissomething wrote:
| I believe he meant that you (personal account) can use this
| feature to protect yourself from scam companies using
| Whatsapp Business to "cold call" you
| HeyLaughingBoy wrote:
| Not really. Many businesses have a fixed set of customers
| that changes very infrequently. e.g., many wholesalers may
| only have a small handful of customers that they sell to.
| kburman wrote:
| "Only if they exceed a certain volume." Who knows what's that
| certain volume? And why can't I block all?
| paxys wrote:
| What are you talking about?
| kburman wrote:
| https://faq.whatsapp.com/3379690015658337/?cms_platform=w
| eb&...
|
| > If Block unknown account messages is turned on,
| WhatsApp will block messages from unknown accounts when
| they exceed a high volume. During this period, your
| contacts can message you as usual. Message blocking stops
| after message rates return to normal.
| crossroadsguy wrote:
| I mean I would find it incredibly hard to believe if Meta pulls
| a "but what can we do" since they approve all those numbers for
| a business with a green fucking checkmark. Since it's mostly a
| paid service they encourage that is what I believe.
| h4ck_th3_pl4n3t wrote:
| Do the following:
|
| - Degoogle your phone and install lineageOS
|
| - Install fdroid
|
| - Install a GPS faker app that lets you set your coordinates
| manually
|
| - Set coordinates to the European court of justice in den hague
|
| - Install whatsapp and telegram
|
| ...never receive spam ever again.
|
| Easy as pie.
| Tyr42 wrote:
| Man, cutting up all the butter to make our crusts is such a
| pain. Glad to see the simile being used properly.
| HeyLaughingBoy wrote:
| yeah, but the result is pie!
| Cumpiler69 wrote:
| _> - Set coordinates to the European court of justice in den
| hague_
|
| 1) That's the international court of justice, not European.
|
| 2) What does the proximity to ICJ have to do with this?
| You're tryin to scare spammers, not Georg Bush, Tony Blair or
| Putin.
| h4ck_th3_pl4n3t wrote:
| Maybe try it out because spammers are regionally targeting
| you and they have geofences in their software?
|
| Edit: nevermind, I didn't realize I was talking to
| "cumpiler69"
| PokemonNoGo wrote:
| Interesting. I didn't even know it existed and I've been on for
| over a decade and am I heavy user. I'm not defending it because
| it sounds horrible i only wonder how I've been spared and you
| not? I would stop using the service instantly if i were you.
| isodev wrote:
| Consumer protection laws perhaps? For example here in
| Belgium/EU, it's illegal to receive ads by phone or mail
| unless you opted in, with a clear and easy option to
| unsubscribe.
| max_ wrote:
| WhatsApp after that Facebook acquisition has simply become worse.
|
| More buggy, more clunky, lists of useless features like
| "communities", Facebook like pages.
|
| I will soon be leaving it and being exclusively on signal.
| the_gipsy wrote:
| Signal also adds random unwanted features, such as statuses.
| doublerabbit wrote:
| And signal still won't stop bugging me to enable
| notifications.
|
| I cannot understand why they have such a notification when I
| don't want notifications.
|
| Am I costing them money for not having notifications on?
| Angostura wrote:
| I guess is someone messages you on Signal and you do not
| reply, or notice, it significantly damages Signal's
| reputation with the person trying to reach you. They will
| give up using Signal and try to reach you in another way.
| Zak wrote:
| For the vast majority of people, not enabling notifications
| in a messaging app is a mistake in the sense of something
| they do want to do but failed to because they're bad at
| technology or just distracted, not in the sense of an ill-
| advised decision they made intentionally.
| gherkinnn wrote:
| Signal added Stories two years ago and they can be
| deactivated completely. I don't use them but fail to see the
| problem here. A reason for people to switch to Signal and a
| non-issue for everybody else.
|
| https://signal.org/blog/introducing-stories/
| the_gipsy wrote:
| The problem is that they will keep adding unwanted
| features, or features wanted by some shareholders.
|
| One alternative is to switch to some open source protocol,
| like matrix.
| Zak wrote:
| Signal is a nonprofit; it does not have shareholders.
|
| It does, however have a mission to bring secure
| communication to a large audience. That means it will add
| features it expects will expand the audience. I don't
| like stories in general (they're FOMO-driven engagement
| bait), but Signal having them doesn't meaningfully impact
| my ability to use it to message and call people.
| gherkinnn wrote:
| Rubbish.
|
| Signal has no shareholders and is a nonprofit, precisely
| so they don't have the wrong incentives.
|
| Stories were added two years ago. There have been no
| "unwanted features" since, provided stories is an
| unwanted feature in the first place.
| Gualdrapo wrote:
| The other day I was downvoted here for mentioning not being
| able to restore a local backup is bonkers. Many people like me
| lost years of chat history because they moved everything to
| Google Drive.
|
| The "stories" feature is just plain stupid. It doesn't make any
| sense.
|
| Also the "business" thing is you with an AI chatbot that just
| offers a crappy answer and you'll need to contact a human
| anyway.
|
| One of the worst cases of software enshittification.
| froidpink wrote:
| The stories feature is actually the most used stories product
| in the world (more than IG or Snapchat)
| meiraleal wrote:
| There is zero chance the whatsapp stories have more views
| than IG stories.
| edgarvaldes wrote:
| Maybe not in the US?
| tokioyoyo wrote:
| You'll be very surprised if you saw internal dashboards for
| each feature usage.
| alberth wrote:
| It's not like FB recently acquired WhatsApp.
|
| The acquisition was 10-years ago (2014). Which is an insanely
| long time in tech.
| naasking wrote:
| > WhatsApp after that Facebook acquisition has simply become
| worse.
|
| Integrating Meta AI was actually genius. I use it all of the
| time.
| jeromegv wrote:
| Really curious.. use it for what?
| naasking wrote:
| Aside from funny pictures, I rough out concepts for
| personal projects while commuting or on off time, mostly.
| It's pretty decent at rough calculations now, but even if
| you don't trust that, if you have a project in mind and you
| describe what you want to do, it can tell you what formulas
| and background knowledge you will need to flesh it out and
| you have the names that you can look up for further
| details. Really cuts down on research time and it's better
| time spent than scrolling memes.
|
| Had an idea to add tracking to my alt-az telescope, asked
| Meta AI what I need to understand and it explains right
| ascension and declination and even provides the coordinate
| transformations needed (and even in a language that I
| specify). I can audit the code and have it write some unit
| tests that I also check, flesh it out a bit and I'm done.
|
| That kind of thing.
| injidup wrote:
| Is this non available in Europe. I don't see any AI chat
| in my search bar. Running latest whatsapp on pixel 8a
| zakki wrote:
| They roll the feature gradually.
| paul7986 wrote:
| I use Messenger constantly and hate Meta AI when it tries to
| push itself on me thru Messenger.
|
| For AI and search (50% use it for queries I'd otherwise
| previously used Google for) I use GPT... that is my AI / AI I
| use.
|
| I do use Meta AI yet only through my Meta Ray Bans which are
| handy.
| never_inline wrote:
| Plusses: better desktop app, dark mode, Meta AI, payments,
| multiple accounts, profile QR code.
|
| Minuses: "communities", business spam, "channels"
|
| I'd say meta did pretty well.
| adonese wrote:
| I don't know what communities on WhatsApp are or how they
| work; but my work partner is heavy on using WhatsApp and
| those communities / channels help him to organize his work.
| So I guess we are not the target audience for that one
| KeplerBoy wrote:
| I don't think they had any desktop or web app before they
| were acquired.
| swah wrote:
| I feel like the sync solution with Whatsapp Web changed at some
| point - it stopped depending on your phone being online.
| amelius wrote:
| > I will soon be leaving it and being exclusively on signal.
|
| How do you do this if all your friends are on WA?
| TechRemarker wrote:
| In the US, while many I know use iMessage or Android send via
| SMS/RCS, most all my friends and family also have Facebook
| Messenger and most all seem to end up sending there since one
| doesn't have to worry about if Apple/Android, or which features
| are supported etc. The only big downside is Facebook Messenger
| strips all meta data, so unlike say Apple Messages, not good for
| sending photos to friends family since won't have the correct
| date, location, etc (which you can turn on/off on Apple
| Messages), and with messages can send as large or as many as I
| want in one message so they can easily add to their Photo library
| with a click. With Facebook Messenger, even with the new HD
| feature (you annoying have to click each time), you still have
| limitations on how many and size you can send. Hoping Messenger
| or or WhatsApp eventually seamlessly support that. Some apps say
| they do but you have to add photo as a "file" which ends up with
| lots of down sides from a user experience. Also if WhatsApp is so
| popular hopefully eventually they let you merge your Messenger
| data into What's App since can't imagine starting in a new app
| and losing a lifetime of messages history. Was excited for RCS,
| but so far, has been problematic where sometimes RCS is enabled
| for a contact other times for same contact its not. Or slow to
| send, though is preserving meta data it seem now. But no support
| for replies, which is a deal breaker and of course not encrypted
| at all.
| jonwinstanley wrote:
| Photos sent on WhatsApp get so heavily reduced in size they are
| pretty useless for anything other than a glance at within a
| conversation
| Zak wrote:
| Signal offers the option to scale images or not, which seems
| like the best option from a user perspective (maybe not from
| a service provider's cost perspective).
| mr_mitm wrote:
| You can send them in the original resolution by selecting
| "Document", then "Gallery". But yes, this requires some
| amount of knowledge.
| Cumpiler69 wrote:
| You can select the compression level in settings.
| zarzavat wrote:
| Toggle the HD button before sending.
| ivanmontillam wrote:
| Do the experiment: it's still not the original file.
|
| Try sending a proper DSLR camera photo using HD, it will
| still get damaged and "artifacted".
| techwizrd wrote:
| I've had the same experience. Practically everyone I know
| primarily uses Facebook Messenger (or sometimes Instagram) for
| messaging since its available everywhere and has the features
| we like. We occasionally use SMS/RCS since it has photomojis or
| WhatsApp for international groups (e.g., all the family
| overseas). A few folks use Signal.
|
| But its mostly Messenger.
| m3kw9 wrote:
| Never used WhatsApp business once, it's always from fb messenger
| or iMessages where business talks
| gotorazor wrote:
| Restoftheworld typically deal with stories outside of the
| United States.
| ivanmontillam wrote:
| I sense a conflict of interests or at the very least
| sponsored posts.
|
| Latest 3 stories from Rest of World are about
| WhatsApp[0][1][2].
|
| What's up with that? As a person who dislikes WhatsApp[3], I
| find this extremely concerning.
|
| In my opinion, this is a PR move.
|
| --
|
| [0]: https://restofworld.org/2024/whatsapp-lifeline-conflict-
| zone...
|
| [1]: https://restofworld.org/2024/how-whatsapp-became-a-
| global-cu...
|
| [2]: https://restofworld.org/2024/how-whatsapp-for-business-
| chang...
|
| [3]: https://www.ivanmontilla.com/blog/goodbye-whatsapp
| meiraleal wrote:
| It is definitely a PR move
| srameshc wrote:
| I was thinking about the same yesterday, if there is something
| that can be done to tell people why it is so bad to do business
| on whatsapp. I don't know why so many love it other than
| convenience. The replies get lost and they are lazy to scroll and
| ask for the same information again. Many professionals like
| accountants want to share all confidential information on
| whatsapp and don't even care for sending an email. That mixed
| with a new style of writing short hand, 'S' for a yes and one
| word reply instead of an answer that requires a sentence at the
| least. All manners have died, just the damn text and pictures
| instead of a proper communication.
| carlosjobim wrote:
| It's in the name, WhatsApp for busy-ness. By forcing all your
| clients and potential clients to chat with you instead of just
| putting the information on a website for them to find, you will
| indeed stay busy all day with people asking the same questions
| over and over.
| create-username wrote:
| website? do you mean a Facebook page?
| jgalt212 wrote:
| WhatsApp has certainly been a boon to those at the SEC who care
| about collecting scurrilous fines.
| eitally wrote:
| Even without WhatsApp for business, it's changed the world. I'm
| an American in the US and have multiple messaging apps on my
| phone, but have recently taken recruiter calls via WhatsApp from
| overseas headhunters. It was surprising, and I'm still a bit
| befuddled when my phone rings and it's an app that isn't
| indicating a POTS call, especially if I haven't received a text
| message in advance to let me know it's coming.
| nikolay wrote:
| No, it didn't! WhatsApp spam is out of control! If you want a
| spam-free messenger, use Viber as it does not allow VoIP phones!
| SirMaster wrote:
| Hmm I have yet to ever use WhatsApp and not sure why I would.
| EduardoBautista wrote:
| Well, this is a new way to spot an American in the wild.
|
| WhatsApp is basically cross platform iMessage. That's why many
| parts of the world use it.
| SirMaster wrote:
| While I do use iMessage a lot, I have typically used Facebook
| Messenger for cross-platform.
|
| But now I am using RCS more and more since it's on iPhone
| now.
| stackskipton wrote:
| Always has been. Many Americans, myself included, never used
| WhatsApp since SMS between people we have needed to contact
| was "free" since like 2007.
| Zak wrote:
| Given most messaging apps are pretty much interchangeable from
| a UX perspective, the main reason you would use it is that
| people you want to talk to are using it.
|
| If you live in the USA, that's probably not the case. If you
| live in Europe, it probably is. If you live in Europe and
| there's a group chat taking place, it's almost certain to be in
| WhatsApp, and that's a much better UX than if it was SMS.
| marginalia_nu wrote:
| SMS is also unencrypted, fairly spoofable and offers no
| delivery guarantees.
| jdlyga wrote:
| It's odd how ubiquitous WhatsApp is in Europe. How and why did it
| catch on there so completely?
| EduardoBautista wrote:
| I am sure it's directly correlated to iPhone market share.
| Zak wrote:
| It's not. Whatsapp was popular in Europe before iMessage
| existed.
|
| The ubiquity of unlimited SMS on US phone plans in the early
| 2010s is probably the biggest factor.
| pfortuny wrote:
| In Spain I guess it is because SMS have never been free (or
| similar). It took off well before wifi was widespread in homes
| and offices, IIRC.
|
| Edit: it costs me around .10EUR to send an SMS...
| mettamage wrote:
| Same in the Netherlands.
| lormayna wrote:
| In Italy SMS are included in the monthly plan since many
| years, but everyone is using WhatsApp too.
| create-username wrote:
| My plan includes free SMS, but nobody is capable of reading
| or sending SMS anymore. Mobile phones can only have three
| apps: phone, WhatsApp and shop discount apps
| stackskipton wrote:
| Easy. European Countries are so small, esp compared to America,
| and there is a ton of movement between them so need to
| communicate between countries was high. However, SMS between
| different country cell networks was extremely expensive for
| various reasons. However, data and data roaming was not. Since
| WhatApp is entirely data to cellular company, it caught on and
| network effect took over.
| mettamage wrote:
| It's also nice to use for calling with US people that are
| willing to put up with it.
|
| How do US people do intentional calls?
| Zak wrote:
| Most don't. The few who have international contacts tend to
| pick whatever their contact uses.
| stackskipton wrote:
| Depending on your family/travel background, it's very
| possible you don't or don't enough to need WhatsApp.
|
| We travel overseas but everyone we have met just keep in
| communication over Facebook.
|
| All our family is in the United States. When we are
| overseas, we just use wifi calling to communicate back home
| or since most people have iPhones, iMessage/Facetime.
|
| My brother is about distance of Moscow to Lisbon from me,
| still a free call since it's domestic.
| GRiMe2D wrote:
| In addition to that, WhatsApp was available at the time on
| Symbian devices and Nokia's S40 devices (I remember
| downloading Jar and Jad files for button mobile devices, and
| each update was free up to year then it was a dollar for a
| year)
| PokemonNoGo wrote:
| Crazy! You made me remember i actually once paid for
| "something" when it comes to Whatsapp! Then they added
| somekind of disclaimer "will be a paid service xxxxxyyyy"
| but it never happened!
|
| Yes I don't remember what I paid for.
| nottorp wrote:
| Pretty sure i paid 0.99 for ... something. I don't
| remember what either. Might have been 1 year of service
| after the first year.
| elbasti wrote:
| The fact that WhatsApp is also gigantic in large countries
| with no intermobility between them (Mexico, Brazil, Nigeria)
| would suggest that the only issue that mattered was the fact
| that ~2011, mobile carriers would charge insane rates for
| SMS.
| stackskipton wrote:
| For sure, but from what I understand, in some European
| Countries in 2011, SMS was free if your recipient was
| inside the country but cost if they were not due to tariffs
| and interconnect fees. Since Europeans do move between
| countries thanks to that European Union thing, it became a
| problem and WhatsApp became the solution.
|
| Sure, other countries it might have picked up domestically
| thanks to high SMS prices but low data prices.
| maxwell wrote:
| But why WhatsApp in Western Europe and Viber on the Balkan
| Peninsula?
| locallost wrote:
| I am not sure this is true. European countries are smaller
| but they are not that small. The number of people sending SMS
| to a foreign number regularly is I guess not significant.
| Potentially it was easier for people working abroad to stay
| in touch with people back home. If anything like that, it
| would be more true that it's the cost of SMS within the
| country - it was always increasingly unlimited but not 10+
| years ago, mine was I think 9 cents. If you had like a 1GB of
| data, then it was a no brainer to save the 9 cents.
| timbit42 wrote:
| From what I've heard, it's ubiquitous everywhere except North
| America, where it is still quite popular. In South America,
| everyone uses it, even to message their doctor with a random
| question.
| Yeul wrote:
| Free messaging. And nowadays free calls- when my brother calls
| me from Japan he uses WhatsApp. I have no idea how they make
| money but I'm not complaining.
|
| Imagine a time when telcos literally demanded 50 cents for
| every time you asked "where are you".
| KeplerBoy wrote:
| It's meta. They make money from advertising.
| 1317 wrote:
| there are no adverts on whatsapp
| nottorp wrote:
| I'm not sure if the sms cost was the reason, at least in my
| fuzzy memories. I think by the time whatsapp showed up I had
| already had unlimited national sms for a couple years.
|
| However, sms is extremely limited and mms is crap.
|
| Whatsapp is text messaging that works.
|
| iMessage is useless because more than half of your contacts
| have Android. Plus it's less intuitive and has fewer features
| than WhatsApp. Possibly because it's designed by americans used
| to the dark ages of sms :)
| jose-cl wrote:
| It is down now btw
| chmod775 wrote:
| "How WhatsApp changed the world by becoming more like WeChat"
|
| Enshittification claims another victim.
| amelius wrote:
| Somewhat related, every time I open the web client of WhatsApp I
| see the side widget animating through my history. What is going
| on here? As a programmer, this looks like some very lazy work,
| but I wonder if there is more to it (?)
| nottorp wrote:
| Whatsapp desktop/web is the epitome of laziness.
|
| When they switched to Electron or whatever it is they removed a
| ton of options, for example enlarging the font.
| skrebbel wrote:
| WhatsApp uses your phone as the primary message store. Its
| architecture is more similar to SMS than to typical DB-driven
| client-server apps. Their servers are only designed to pass
| messages through, not persist them (they persist them only
| until they're delivered to all recipients, which usually is
| very short). This is an uncommon design these days, but it's
| also what's let them serve half the world with 5 backend
| engineers (!) back before Facebook/Meta bought them. It's also
| why, if you didn't make any backups, you lose your WhatsApp
| message history when you switch phones.
|
| So the web/desktop clients are thin clients over that store on
| your phone, which keep an eventually-consistent cache of the
| messages somewhere locally (indexeddb or something like that I
| bet). So if I'm not mistaken, when you open the web client, it
| connects to a WhatsApp relay server which wakes up the WhatsApp
| app on your phone, asks it for any new messages since last time
| it connected, and syncs them over. This is a fast but not
| instant process and what you're seeing is the UI realtime
| updating as the messages are being synced. The longer since
| you've had the web client open, the longer this takes.
|
| I'm not sure if it's deliberate but I can totally imagine it to
| be. It very clearly shows the syncing taking place. Personally,
| since I'm rather enamored by their design, I love seeing it
| play out in realtime.
|
| Note, I'm not 100% sure about any of the above, notably core
| aspects of the architecture might've changed since Meta took
| over.
| k8sToGo wrote:
| Is this still the case? Afaik you can use web Whatsapp
| without phone now
| PokemonNoGo wrote:
| Interesting article and I must say I am quite surprised having
| used Whatsapp religiously for now over a decade that I had never
| heard about _WhatsApp for Business_. Makes me wonder when I will
| get to interact with this part of the app too... Not that I want
| to though.
| isodev wrote:
| I discovered the feature while on holiday once, we could IM
| orders for food and drinks while near the pool so they can just
| bring them. It's was awesome. Since then I've had several
| customer care services using this instead of email or calling.
| I like the async/treat it like a normal chat aspect to it.
| ValentineC wrote:
| WhatsApp's single main life-changing thing for me was not
| having to pay exorbitant roaming charges to receive calls
| from hotels (mainly to tell me that my room is ready) while
| on a trip.
|
| There's always been methods to contact customers using data
| instead of VoLTE, but WhatsApp is simple and ubiquitous
| enough for businesses to adopt, since a lot of people outside
| the US use it in a personal capacity as well.
|
| More hotels should get onto WhatsApp.
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