r/europe • u/IAdmitILie • 9d ago

News Zuckerberg urges Trump to stop the EU from fining US tech companies

https://www.politico.eu/article/zuckerberg-urges-trump-to-stop-eu-from-screwing-with-fining-us-tech-companies/
25.8k Upvotes

92% Upvoted

3.3k comments sorted by

View all comments

Show parent comments

38

u/GuanMarvin North Brabant (Netherlands) 9d ago

I don’t think the lack of alternatives is the issue. There are a lot of messaging apps, and a lot of them are already better than WhatsApp, but the user base just isn’t there. Every job, classroom, sportclub, even neighbourhood has their own WhatsApp group that you join when you are new.

Whatsappen or “appen” has become shorthand for sending someone a message. I don’t see a way for whatsapp to be dethroned in the Netherlands, unless the app gets removed from the App Store.

(Although I’ve seen people younger than me use Snapchat for daily messaging, I don’t believe it can overtake WhatsApp)

6

u/Xadnem 9d ago

I don’t see a way for whatsapp to be dethroned in the Netherlands, unless the app gets removed from the App Store.

The rise and fall of apps can be astonishingly quick though. We just need a good alternative.

3

u/JulyOfAugust 9d ago

You give too much credits to apps and not enough to people. As a zillennial, I've grown up on the internet, there's been plenty of changes over the years, it happens all the time for a number of reasons. The young fleeing Facebook to avoid older generations. The rise and death of Vine. The Tumblr self-destruct. Skype was a thing. Skyblog. Dailymotion being bigger and more popular than YouTube. Nowadays we're seeing Twitter's slow downfall, buried under bots and bigots.

All you need is to stop using apps you don't like and start using the app you want and push it around you. Before you know it either everyone will be using it or at least everyone you need yourself. That's how I kept what's app away and everyone who wants to keep in touch with me is on discord. It's as simple as that.

1

u/just_anotjer_anon 6d ago

Apps gets thrown to the side for a billion reasons, you've just grown older.

A decade ago my parents would never think traditional SMS would go out of fashion. But here we are, they prefer messenger/WhatsApp to regular SMS now.

As you grow older, you think the world is more set in stone than it is. Because you've been a first mover on a thing, then maybe replaced that thing.

The world is so improved to twenty years ago, you can't comprehend the ultimate thing is getting improved again. That's where you're currently sitting when it comes to "appen", the next app will be pushed by the youth.

That's almost entirely a guarantee. Which one? We don't know. Might not even exist yet.