Facebook vs WhatsApp
Facebook finished ahead of WhatsApp in 1 of 2 money-backed crowd markets; WhatsApp won 0, and 1 ended level.
Markets where each side finished ahead of the other, counted on each market's latest story. Percentages are consensus within that market, among all of its sides.
- Facebook 26%
- WhatsApp 24%
Facebook vs WhatsApp: One Owner, Two Crowns, and a Crowd That Can't Pick
Meta owns both apps, the crowd on Morfi's opinion markets can barely separate them, and our three columnists refuse to agree on why.
On February 19, 2014, Facebook agreed to buy a messaging app with a pun for a name for US$19 billion. At the time it was Facebook's largest acquisition, and the largest ever for a venture-capital-backed company. The pun was WhatsApp, which is meant to sound like "what's up". The buyer was the social network that had started life in 2004 as a Harvard-only directory. Since then the two have lived under the same roof, which is now Meta Platforms, and people have been arguing about which one is the real king ever since.
The argument won't die because nobody agrees on what is being measured. Facebook is a social network, a place where you perform your life for an audience. WhatsApp is primarily a messaging service that also counts as social media, a place where you send a voice note to your aunt. Is the most widely used social platform the one with the biggest town square or the one with the busiest kitchen table? Same owner, same earnings call, different human habits. We have a columnist for each side and a third who thinks you are all holding the wrong end of the stick.
The rivalry keeps coming back on Morfi, where real people back their opinions with money. Every figure below comes from those opinion markets, and the percentages are consensus, meaning the crowd's conviction per side, not a head count of people. Across two markets Facebook has finished ahead in one, WhatsApp in none, and the other ended level. In the Indonesian-language market on the most popular social media app, Facebook and WhatsApp sat tied at 12% consensus each, far behind X (Twitter) at 48%. In the market on the most widely used platform worldwide, still trading, Facebook sits at 26% against WhatsApp's 24%. That is a gap you could lose behind a sofa cushion.
The Original Specimen Still Wins the Petri Dish
Dr. Iris QuarkScience & Life
Let me set up the experiment properly. If you want to know which organism dominates an ecosystem, you don't ask which one is quietest or most convenient. You ask which one built the ecosystem. That is Facebook. It was launched as TheFacebook by Mark Zuckerberg on February 4, 2004, limited at first to Harvard students. On September 26, 2006, it opened to anyone at least 13 years old with a valid email address. By 2007, according to the history of Facebook, it had passed MySpace in global traffic and become the world's most popular social media platform. That is a textbook case of one species outcompeting another and then redefining the habitat.
Now the control group. WhatsApp is a magnificent tool, but a tool is not a platform. A thermometer is used constantly and nobody calls it a social space. The question on the board asks for the most widely used social media platform, and a social platform needs feeds, groups, pages, strangers and acquaintances, the whole messy tissue of weak ties. Fun fact, since I can't help myself: sociologists call those weak ties the acquaintances who bring you news your close friends never would, and that is exactly what a network does and a chat thread mostly doesn't.
The data agrees, with appropriate error bars. In the worldwide market, with only fourteen traders so far, Facebook leads at 26% consensus to WhatsApp's 24%. It is a thin lead and I won't pretend otherwise. In the earlier Indonesian-language market the two tied at 12%, though both were swamped by X at 48%. Note that Facebook was never behind in either sample. Grandma will now tell you about her family group chat. It is charming, but it is an anecdote, and I work in replicates.
Nobody Ever Rang a Bell for Dinner on a Timeline
Grandma GigabyteTech for Humans
Now, dear, I have looked at both of these gadgets, and I know which one my whole family actually uses. It is the green one. WhatsApp started in May 2009, and the name is meant to sound like "what's up", which is the friendliest thing any company has ever done to a greeting. By 2015 it was the world's most popular messaging application with 900 million users, and by February 2016 it had reached one billion. That is a lot of people who wanted a simple thing: say hello, send the photo of the casserole, done. Dr. Quark can keep her petri dish. A kitchen is the oldest social network there is, and WhatsApp is the kitchen.
I will say this about the grown-up squabbles. In 2014 Facebook paid US$19 billion for it, which is a great deal of money for something that fits in a pocket. Then in 2017 the European Commission fined Facebook €110 million for providing misleading information about the takeover. In January 2021 WhatsApp announced a privacy policy allowing data sharing with Facebook, and many people packed up their chats and left for Signal and Telegram. The update was postponed to May 15, 2021. Now, in my kitchen, if the guests start walking out, the host stops and asks what went wrong. Moral of the story: people care about this app the way they care about the front door.
As for the Morfi numbers, WhatsApp is at 24% consensus in the worldwide market, just two points behind Facebook at 26%, and tied with it at 12% in the other market. You young people call that a rounding error. I call it a pot that hasn't finished simmering. And think about who is in those markets: fourteen traders in one, thirty in the other. Most of the people actually using WhatsApp are busy sending voice messages and haven't been asked yet.
Press Release: The Question Has Been Retired for Efficiency
Ada BytewellSatire Desk
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE. The Committee for the Settlement of Which Meta Product Is Bigger is pleased to announce that the question of Facebook versus WhatsApp has been resolved by a procedure of great elegance: both belong to the same company, so the winner is, in every meaningful ledger, Meta Platforms. The Committee notes that on February 19, 2014 a rivalry was purchased for US$19 billion and placed in a drawer labeled synergies. Rivalry is hereby reclassified as internal accounting. Citizens who still wish to take sides may do so at their own expense.
The Committee further observes that the crowd, with characteristic generosity, has been asking the wrong question altogether. In the Indonesian-language market on the most popular social media app, X (Twitter) holds 48% consensus and TikTok 17%, while Facebook and WhatsApp sit tied at 12% each, and Instagram, another Meta product, at 11%. As I reported in the verdict on that market, the putative giants of the Meta household were left to split the crumbs. In the worldwide market, Facebook and Instagram share 26% and WhatsApp trails at 24%, meaning a single corporate parent controls roughly three of the top spots. The Committee cannot say this is a rivalry. It is a family reunion with a betting slip.
In the spirit of public service, the Committee proposes that Morfi replace the question with a more useful one: which app is most widely used by people who insist they are not using it? Early estimates suggest the answer is whichever one sent you a reminder about a cousin's birthday. The Committee thanks Dr. Quark for her replicates, Grandma Gigabyte for her casserole, and all traders for their continued, and entirely voluntary, contribution to the discussion. This release has been approved by no one.
Round table
- Dr. Iris Quark
- Grandma, a fair question: if WhatsApp is the kitchen, why does the crowd's conviction still lean slightly toward the house with the front lawn? Facebook is at 26% and you are at 24%.
- Grandma Gigabyte
- Because the people betting are the ones who like shouting across the lawn, dear. Kitchens don't fill out forms. My question for you: how do you measure a thing that happens in private?
- Dr. Iris Quark
- Carefully, and with a lot of humility. I'd admit the worldwide market has only fourteen traders so far, so my confidence interval is roughly the size of Texas. Opinion: Facebook keeps a narrow lead, but only narrowly.
- Ada Bytewell
- May I ask both of you why you are arguing over a lead that is two points wide, between two apps with the same landlord?
- Grandma Gigabyte
- Because families fight hardest over what is already theirs, Ada. And you did put out a press release about it, so you are not above the stove either.
- Ada Bytewell
- The Committee does not comment on the stove. Opinion: the crowd will keep asking this question until a market finally asks the real one, which is whether anyone can leave the Meta household at all.
- Dr. Iris Quark
- Prediction, strictly my opinion: when the worldwide market settles, Facebook and Instagram will still be neck and neck, and WhatsApp will be close enough to make everyone nervous.
- Grandma Gigabyte
- My opinion, then: WhatsApp overtakes Facebook in the crowd's conviction before the year is out, because sooner or later the traders will check their own phones and see what they open first.
Every market, newest first
- Exclusive
Most widely used social media platform worldwide
Facebook 26%WhatsApp 24%
THE ORB SHAKES: Facebook and Instagram Tied in a Dead Heat for the Social Crown - Breaking
Aplikasi sosmed terpopuler
Facebook 12%WhatsApp 12%
VERDICT IN: X (Twitter) Crowned Most Popular Social App as TikTok Settles for Silver