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I was in Cape Town, South Africa last week working from my mobile hotspot during one of the rolling power blackouts and Gmail and Slack on the web browser were

I was in Cape Town, South Africa last week working from my mobile hotspot during one of the rolling power blackouts and Gmail and Slack on the web browser were both so slow they were effectively dead. I was hunting around (with poor connectivity) and for the life of me could not find the link to the HTML version of gmail from my laptop. I supposedly had "5G" from my T-Mobile International Data Pass. Also sometimes phone calls and very frequently SMS messages would not go through in many parts of South Africa including Cape Town. I still received mail through my IMAP connections and we switched to Whatsapp for work communications, which appears to be stable for most any low bandwidth or intermittent connectivity situation. Through my 1 week in Africa I didn't miss any messages at all on Whatsapp and was able to send messages any time I had signal. Whatsapp voice calls worked pretty well. Slack on my mobile seemed to work but I was not sure if it was synching in real time. Slack voice calls I was told were pretty bad from my side. We've seen a huge rise in Whatsapp use recently when working in our colleagues in less developed areas. I initially loathed dealing with "yet another messaging app" when people started using Whatsapp, but it's great to see a tool that's robust enough to work in non-optimal connectivity.

MichaelZuo 3y ago
Isn’t email even more reliable then Whatsapp?
- navane 3y ago
  Not when the web Gmail client requires 40mb of crust just to read or send 1kb messages
  - diffeomorphism 3y ago
    So why use the web client instead of a proper desktop one?
    - alternatex 3y ago
      Google hasn't built one and the generic ones aren't all that great.
      - guraf 3y ago
        Right. So let's not use the imperfect local clients that still work well. Let's just keep complaining about how Google is a big meanie for not making mail.google.com work offline (somehow) instead.
      - carlosjobim 3y ago
        The stock Mac mail client is excellent, millions of people use Outlook or Thunderbird, and there's even better third party clients available.
      - paulddraper 3y ago
        Really? There's not a single great email app? Opportunity there I guess.
- sangnoir 3y ago
  Email has higher overhead than WhatsApp
  - niutech 3y ago
    Not necessarily, see Delta Chat.
timeon 3y ago
> my laptop How about local client?
- doubled112 3y ago
  I always feel like I'm the odd person out preferring local clients for everything. The less I need a browser for, the happier I seem. I still use Thunderbird because I have a half a dozen email accounts. It was probably too late for them, but for me this would have just worked.
  - subhro 3y ago
    > I always feel like I'm the odd person out preferring local clients for everything No you are not. I prefer to use local clients for everything as well.
botanical 3y ago
Eh, I'm in South Africa and mobile and fibre internet work well for me during loadshedding (This goes for gmail, Slack, etc.). > Also sometimes phone calls and very frequently SMS messages would not go through in many parts of South Africa including Cape Town You say in many parts, really? What other parts? Maybe get a local SIM if where you're staying doesn't have fibre; is this not a T-Mobile issue?
- danielhep 3y ago
  This is likely a TMobile issue since the connection gets proxies back to the US when using their roaming service, which slows things down a lot.
nico 3y ago
> "yet another messaging app" Outside of the US, Whatsapp is pretty much _the_ messaging app
- hyperhopper 3y ago
  In my experience, in Europe 90% of messaging is through Instagram, Whatsapp use is rare.
  - ffgjgf1 3y ago
    It’s 80% FB messenger where I am.
    - fuzztester 3y ago
      This subthread reminds of https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blind_men_and_an_elephant https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blind_men_and_an_elephant
  - Tijdreiziger 3y ago
    You appear to be living in a very different Europe than me…
  - belter 3y ago
    "Global usage of messaging apps and statistics" - https://engage.sinch.com/blog/global-messenger-apps-usage-statistics/ https://engage.sinch.com/blog/global-messenger-apps-usage-st... If you are in a hurry: https://engage.sinch.com/sites/default/files/styles/x_large_hq/public/image/2023-03/worldsmostusedsocialmediaplatformsjanuary2023datareportal.png.webp?itok=yojjfnmS https://engage.sinch.com/sites/default/files/styles/x_large_...
  - guraf 3y ago
    You clearly live in a bubble, I've never heard of ig being used for im.
    - ludwik 3y ago
niutech 3y ago
Why use Whatsapp which is not private and owned by Meta? Better use Signal or Delta Chat: https://delta.chat https://delta.chat

MichaelZuo 3y ago

Isn’t email even more reliable then Whatsapp?

navane 3y ago
Not when the web Gmail client requires 40mb of crust just to read or send 1kb messages
- diffeomorphism 3y ago
  So why use the web client instead of a proper desktop one?
  - alternatex 3y ago
    Google hasn't built one and the generic ones aren't all that great.
    - guraf 3y ago
      Right. So let's not use the imperfect local clients that still work well. Let's just keep complaining about how Google is a big meanie for not making mail.google.com work offline (somehow) instead.
    - carlosjobim 3y ago
      The stock Mac mail client is excellent, millions of people use Outlook or Thunderbird, and there's even better third party clients available.
    - paulddraper 3y ago
      Really? There's not a single great email app? Opportunity there I guess.
sangnoir 3y ago
Email has higher overhead than WhatsApp
- niutech 3y ago
  Not necessarily, see Delta Chat.

timeon 3y ago

> my laptop How about local client?

doubled112 3y ago
I always feel like I'm the odd person out preferring local clients for everything. The less I need a browser for, the happier I seem. I still use Thunderbird because I have a half a dozen email accounts. It was probably too late for them, but for me this would have just worked.
- subhro 3y ago
  > I always feel like I'm the odd person out preferring local clients for everything No you are not. I prefer to use local clients for everything as well.

botanical 3y ago

Eh, I'm in South Africa and mobile and fibre internet work well for me during loadshedding (This goes for gmail, Slack, etc.). > Also sometimes phone calls and very frequently SMS messages would not go through in many parts of South Africa including Cape Town You say in many parts, really? What other parts? Maybe get a local SIM if where you're staying doesn't have fibre; is this not a T-Mobile issue?

danielhep 3y ago
This is likely a TMobile issue since the connection gets proxies back to the US when using their roaming service, which slows things down a lot.

nico 3y ago

> "yet another messaging app" Outside of the US, Whatsapp is pretty much _the_ messaging app

hyperhopper 3y ago
In my experience, in Europe 90% of messaging is through Instagram, Whatsapp use is rare.
- ffgjgf1 3y ago
  It’s 80% FB messenger where I am.
  - fuzztester 3y ago
    This subthread reminds of https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blind_men_and_an_elephant https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blind_men_and_an_elephant
- Tijdreiziger 3y ago
  You appear to be living in a very different Europe than me…
- belter 3y ago
  "Global usage of messaging apps and statistics" - https://engage.sinch.com/blog/global-messenger-apps-usage-statistics/ https://engage.sinch.com/blog/global-messenger-apps-usage-st... If you are in a hurry: https://engage.sinch.com/sites/default/files/styles/x_large_hq/public/image/2023-03/worldsmostusedsocialmediaplatformsjanuary2023datareportal.png.webp?itok=yojjfnmS https://engage.sinch.com/sites/default/files/styles/x_large_...
- guraf 3y ago
  You clearly live in a bubble, I've never heard of ig being used for im.
  - ludwik 3y ago

niutech 3y ago

Why use Whatsapp which is not private and owned by Meta? Better use Signal or Delta Chat: https://delta.chat https://delta.chat