Sasha Kaletsky explains how WhatsApp could dominate U.S. messaging through network effects starting with group chats that migrate to avoid green bubbles, plus SMS's spam problem making WhatsApp's controlled messaging more attractive. Building on WhatsApp's platform remains difficult despite its potential.
Yeah, but you still think WhatsApp is gonna take over the US, right? I do. I do think WhatsApp will take over the US. What's— why are the network effects on WhatsApp so strong compared to Snapchat? It's just messaging. Why is it gonna work better?
Yeah, it's really interesting. I think WhatsApp will eventually work because it will start with group threads, which even if there's only 30% of Americans that are on Android, It just— more and more groups are gonna need to be there because otherwise you've got the green bubble problem and all this stuff. Yeah, features are better than SMS. That's issue one. Topic— and then the group threads become one-to-one and then you start using it. I think topic— the reason, the second reason is that SMS is getting really spammy. Like, I don't know, I don't know about you, but my SMS is full with like brands and shit that I don't want to see. Deliveries. And deliveries and like incoming stuff that I don't initiate. Right. And WhatsApp have been super smart. Meta have been super smart, super deliberate about not allowing companies to just send you WhatsApp without you having to first engage them. Yeah, it's beautiful. It's a great experience. Everything I'm seeing there is actually relevant to me.
I think it's really hard to build on top of WhatsApp anything at all, right? Like any sort of distribution for— I mean, there is WhatsApp for businesses and there is a few companies that try to allow you to automate conversations. Yeah, it's like, it's not easy at all. I don't know. I don't know how the API allowance there— No, it's a really good point.
Actually, it's a space that we went super hard into. WhatsApp, building on WhatsApp, building sites on WhatsApp. That was like a key theme of ours when we, when we started this fund, and it was something that we were really exploring. And increasingly we realized that WhatsApp are being super intentional about not letting brands Give you spammy inbound, which is the one thing that keeps it relevant versus SMS.
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