Ask HN: How many apps would it take to reach 90% of the people in your country? | Hacker News Reader

Ask HN: How many apps would it take to reach 90% of the people in your country?

2 pointsrfarley0411 comments

For example, I live in Thailand and the (Japan-based) messaging app LINE could probably reach almost everyone with a smartphone.

Seems like in most Western countries it would probably take 3 or 4 apps? What are they where you live?

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Probably one... the stock messaging app? In the US, most people send and receive SMS text messages like it's still 1999.

Yea, I should have been more emphatic that I was specifically thinking about apps. Although I didn't mean the question to be explicitly about undue influence over a population, it is what I was wondering, e.g. how many (centralized) privately owned businesses would it take to get a message in front of an entire country. I was worried it would sound more conspiratorial than I wanted it to

What do you mean "apps"? Isn't the messaging app still an... app? Do you mean like proprietary networks/protocols that only one vendor can access? Even by that standard, you can reach half the country through iMessage and the other half through RCS (which has some limited operability on iOS now). And both still fall back to SMS.

The "dominant messenger app" thing just never really took off here in the US the way it did in Europe and Asia. Facebook Messenger was popular for a while, but never the majority. Same with AIM before it, though that was before the smartphone era.

If you really want to reach 90% of the country, though, it's not really about messaging apps... just do something noteworthy and word will get around organically, with people sharing across channels for you.

I mean privately owned, centralized internet based apps like WhatsApp, Facebook (the social media and the messenger), Twitter, etc.

Under that criteria, iMessage still counts (when it's not falling back to SMS). Messenger might still be used, but Facebook is generally falling out of favor with the younger generations... think they use Instagram and Discord more. WhatsApp is generally not used here. Twitter has a pretty limited audience and is mostly used for online comms, I think, not DMs to people you know IRL.

One, in Denmark, we have a system called MitID (basically SSO login for public services (and private services can use it too). Even though there are other options (hardware totp dongle and such), most people have the app installed - I would guess easily over 90% (over the age of 13).

I had thought about excluding gov apps from the question. But ultimately curious about those as well. Thanks for answering!

One. WhatsApp is pretty big in Turkey

When I tell people I don't have WhatsApp, you'd swear I just castrated their father on live television. I just don't use Meta products, that's all!

SAME. People look at me like I just came out of a jungle... I would rather live without electricity for the rest of my life than be associated with anything owned by Meta :)

Same in most of Europe.

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