WhatsApp Is What's Up

For most of our lives, WhatsApp has pretty much been a throwaway app. It sat unopened, deep in an iPhone folder somewhere after a semester abroad. Until recently, its usage was reserved for connecting with a European friend or chatting with an eccentric American who LARPS as a European friend. But over the last two years, WhatsApp has earned its place on our homescreen as a most used app.

This week, NYMag suggested that the app, which is owned by Meta, is the future of Facebook. Over half of cellphone-owning Americans aged 18-35 have it installed, and the app has become one of Meta’s fastest growing properties. The state of social apps today represents a reactive battleground; they are perhaps more reflective of their leaders’ egos than their users’ needs. NYMag put it best: “Instagram is TikTok but also Snapchat. Threads is Twitter but also Instagram. Facebook is Craigslist but also Reddit. Messenger is now WhatsApp. And WhatsApp is the new Facebook.” Against a landscape of cluttered social apps copying each other’s features, WhatsApp stands out with a clear value prop. And it is easy to use, community-based, and, well, social.

• Easy to use. Like us, most people already have WhatsApp installed (regardless of how frequently it's used) eliminating the need to go through a friction-filled download and sign up flow. The interface is simple, intuitive, and noticeably unnoisy (unlike Discord). Replies and threads are clean and compact, messages open to the last read so users don’t have to scroll, and unknown numbers often appear with peoples’ names and pictures, providing context and trust.

• Community-based. WhatsApp has become the de facto app for group chats – in particular, theme-based group chats that serve to bring people together around a specific topic. Chats have features uniquely suited to community discussion, such as disappearing messages and admins that are responsible for adding and removing people. These conversations are often governed by Chatham House Rules, and participants (generally) stick to the bounds of the topic. Features like encryption and contact identity allow for higher trust and, in turn, foster more open and rich discussion.

• Social. As Sam has previously discussed, WhatsApp has become a full-blown social network. Through group chats, users meet new people, discover their content, and branch off for new 1:1 conversations. And, just like with other social apps, users’ preferences, perspectives, and attitudes shine through – but within the confines of an intimate, trusted, and relatively private domain.

As the world continues to produce more and more content, we continue to believe that communities will become even more important and value-generative. Discord and Reddit have historically owned community-based connection; however, high fidelity platforms, like WhatsApp, Telegram, and even Circle, are emerging as key infrastructure to support this same use case. These mediums will ultimately define how people not only interact and engage with one another, but also how they come to self-identify in, signal to, and consume within the “outside” world.