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This seems pretty big news?

Perhaps the start of instant messaging becoming more like email?

No, lol, WhatsApp remains in full control of user IDs. Maybe if they make WA federated, but we both know this is not gonna happen.
When I open the page all I see is:

> Chats with third-party apps are only available in select regions and may not be available to you.

Even the FAQ page is geo restricted. What a shitty attitude.

I wanted to try this, but it's not possible (yet?) for regular folks apparently.

Supposedly the two apps "BirdyChat" and "Hiket" are WA compatible. Both are waitlist only.

Even after searching for ~15 minutes, I could find no information about how to become such a compatible provider.

I hope this situation will improve drastically, but it also looks like Meta will do whatever they can to make it as hard and annoying as possible, as they don't want to lose market share. Disappointing.

There are already a huge number of apps running on whatsapp in India for booking of cooking gas refill, car insurance renewal etc. Basically, user interaction is driven using chat until all inputs are captured. I think this is very effective as it requires familiarity with only one app.

Whatsapp as universal user interface.

Is this one of the instances where European regulations hurt businesses?