WhatsApp is one of the most used chat applications in the world. It was acquired by Facebook in 2014. Before that, it was still very popular, and I would say that it was one of the reasons why Facebook wanted to acquire it. I never had a great opinion of WhatsApp. The main reason was that it lacked a lot of features. One thing that made it famous was that it was being used by a lot of people all over the world. During the early days of WhatsApp, there was no reply feature as well in WhatsApp.
Source - Gemini
Many people find Discord, Slack, or other applications for the very reason. Feature-wise, it is not very great, but it is very popular. Even the uncles and aunties are used to WhatsApp, and they don't want to switch to any other application. This is when I realized that feature-wise, it is not very important to be successful. Even a simple application that solves the basic needs of individuals can become popular. In the case of WhatsApp, marketing played a very big role, probably. People started looking at each other like someone is doing a sin if they don't use WhatsApp. In many countries, WhatsApp is not very common, or they don't promote it, but it has made a revolutionary change.
When WhatsApp was created, it fixed one of the biggest problems, which was free communication. People were able to talk over the internet with ease and no requirement for additional money. Today we have free and unlimited phone calls. But back then, we had to pay for outgoing calls. When WhatsApp solved that very problem, it became very popular. Today, some of the most important features that are required, like the edit feature in the application, were introduced only recently.
After seeing Telegram having a feature to have a username, WhatsApp is also introducing the feature for people to select a username. The unfortunate thing is that it is common across all meta platforms, so we cannot pick our desired username because it is already picked by someone on either Instagram or Facebook. That explains why this feature on WhatsApp is very late.
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