Am I in a bubble and these features are, in fact, widely used on WhatsApp?
I'm in groups with a whole lot of other people including a few who keep up with modern social media stuff, use TikTok, use Instagram, et c., and zero of them use the Status feature or Stories or anything but messaging. For us it's just ICQ/text with better media embedding (but still really bad, somehow). Some of us regularly use similar features, but only on other platforms, never on WhatsApp.
Is that unusual, and these are in fact much-beloved features by a good chunk of the WhatsApp user-base?
Can't speak for the world but WhatsApp Statuses (stories) are used by many many people in East Africa. It is basically what keeps me coming back to WhatsApp over Signal so I am quite thrilled to see Signal now have them. Maybe that will shift more people over.
I'm using WhatsApp everyday, but have never encountered anybody using stories (I can't even find it in WhatsApp on Android, is it the camera-ocon in the top-left?)
A lot of people around me in Germany from all ages and bubbles use this feature in WhatsApp as if it were some kind of Instagram. I see multiple status updates every day.
By my experience only people in poor countries outside Europe use this feature. Don't ask me why this specific group chose this instead of Facebook/Instagram. Literally none Europeans from various countries in my Whatsapp use this.
I'm in groups with a whole lot of other people including a few who keep up with modern social media stuff, use TikTok, use Instagram, et c., and zero of them use the Status feature or Stories or anything but messaging. For us it's just ICQ/text with better media embedding (but still really bad, somehow). Some of us regularly use similar features, but only on other platforms, never on WhatsApp.
Is that unusual, and these are in fact much-beloved features by a good chunk of the WhatsApp user-base?