Does anybody know anything about whatsapp ?

[Rusty Edge]

Some new acquaintance is asking me to get it. I don't see the point, but then again I obviously don't know what I'm missing.

Sounds like a time sink to me. I like stuff like e-mail that I get around to once or twice in the 24 hour cycle. Not something where I can be accessed all of the time and feel rude if I don't respond.

[Unorthodox]

IRC for the mobile generation is the best way I can think to describe it.  I don't use it, but the kids, especially Talia, have it for group chats with their friends as it handles cross platform really well. 

Then, there's not much I see that discord couldn't do.  Maybe it's more mobile friendly? 

[Geo]

If you ever used Skype, Whatsapp is something like that. Its a bit more versatile then my mobile phone operator's chat/sms function in that you. An choose go just have an audio chat, video chat, or texting.
I mostly use it to have a chat with friends abroad.

[Rusty Edge]

Okay, thank you both. This makes some sense of it to me.

[Rusty Edge]

Some background- Last year my wife pointed me to an internet discussion about a distant relative who was also an historical figure. I recommended a couple of biographies and made an article I'd written on my facebook accessible to some of them. I got some friend requests after that and one of them seemed to be interested in me rather than my relative.

 A beautiful divorced Chinese mom living in LA, working as a financial planner, ( I didn't ask her about it) and had a part time beauty products business. Why any beautiful woman more than a generation younger would want to yap with a happily married Boomer was beyond me, but I decided to be nice and see. Mostly we spoke of preparations for Christmas and philosophy, She wanted me to get What's Ap because it would be more convenient than Facebook messenger.

About a week into January she sent me a message with a screen shot of a daily profit of about $8,900 USD. with the caption- "This is the AI quantitative mining machine I invested in, today's income,"  I didn't even ask her a question about it, and we haven't communicated since.  She simply stopped initiating.

I don't know about you, but if I were making about $9K/day I wouldn't be in a customer service job besides.

[Buster's Uncle]

I don't sniff what the scam is - but surely that is one...

[Rusty Edge]

I don't know what was up with that, either, but I wasn't going to ask because I'm not interested. Like Warren Buffet I don't do investments I don't understand. The language reminds me of program trading or crypto currency.

[Buster's Uncle]

It can't be anything but an investment enticement, no.  Wonder why she broke off after all that work.  Police barged in?

[Rusty Edge]

I figure she's just talking to other geezers who are more receptive.

[Unorthodox]

Coworker runs this kind of stuff by me as he keeps getting offers to invest in random crap but doesn't understand it.  There are a BUNCH of scams out there and a LOT of them have screens or even videos of great returns. 

I warned him off a crypto sure to be the next bitcoin during the height of the craze when his neighbors were all dogpiling into this thing and they'd show poor Mike their screenshots of having millions of dollars because it said so in their app.  I consistently reminded him they don't have anything til they get the money back out. 

Yeah, that wonderful investment turns out no one actually accepted/traded said crypto other than the companies own website, and it's proprietary app was just feeding nice looking graphs and numbers at their marks.  Neighbors lost tons... 

[Rusty Edge]

Full disclosure- I didn't see the potential in Amazon in the 90s. I didn't believe that people would willingly accept the time cost and expense of the internet for personal use. Not at the scale that would make the Amazon business model competitive. Why expose your computer to a virus it would never catch if you didn't buy a modem? The internet was slow to begin with and pictures made it crawl. Easier to go to Walmart.

[Unorthodox]

I have a kind of love/hate relationship with Amazon.  Slowly moving more maintenance stuff to them.  Filters for the cat's water or the fridge, etc.  Predictable things.  Hard to find things for sure.  But I still find going to the local store easier for most of it, then check back if I can't find something.