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There are some technical reasons, such as that the encryption is broken, the protocol isn't open and they have everybody's address books. Also, you can only use it from your phone. But (apart from the address book issue maybe) most people don't care about that. Usability-wise I like it more than Google's IM clients. Since I pay for the service, I trust them more than I trust Google, which is an advertisement company after all.

I'd much prefer it if everybody used XMPP, but unfortunately that's not the case.

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As a user of the app, I don't care about any of them. As far as I see it - it's perfect. For example - them having my addressbook means that I don't have to set up any contacts. While I wish there was a desktop service, its lack is just that - something I wish existed.

I think a more precise way to describe it is "I disagree with certain technical solutions they chose".

Your opinion might change after someone sends messages to your contacts as you by spoofing your phone number (very easy).

Look - I get the security implications.

But I (personally) consider the probability of it happening x potential damage to be insignificant when compared with convenience offered.

It might be easy but is it common, i.e., is it a real world problem?

Friends complain about falling victim to Facebook scams all the time but I have never heard a complaint about WhatsApp … I know that such an anecdote is not of much use but WhatsApp seems at least not to have lost the trust of its users so far.

WhatsApp is AFAIK based on XMPP.

Anyway, the protocol in use isn't important from a user perspective. Using XMPP or being 'open' isn't relevant to users, ease of use and network effects are.

Skype is another example IMHO.

The idea behind "being open" and "using XMPP" is to make network effects irrelevant: XMPP federation allows you to talk to anybody also using XMPP, regardless of their service provider -- imagine messaging Facebook Messenger users seamlessly via WhatsApp. Just like Email works already. That's the point of XMPP. And because XMPP is extensible, providers could still compete on features without locking their users in. Wouldn't that be great?

Unfortunately, there's a strong business incentive for user lock-in. Imagine Email were created today instead of 40 years ago. We'd have a myriad of startups trying to make a buck from incompatible services. "Our new customer uses Exchange, does anybody have an Exchange account so I can email him?" As long as companies are trying to make products out of the social need to communicate, and thereby fight for the triviality of who gets to route the messages, there won't be much innovation on top of these services.

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