Just finished configuring my WhatsApp account on my iPhone. What a weird user experience. I couldn’t get my verification code to be sent by SMS after many tries. Finally asked to be called. WhatsApp asked me if I wanted to restore data from a non-existent iCloud backup. My account is configured with my current phone number which I’m pretty sure won’t work once I’m in Morocco. I bet that changing this phone number will require me to access my SMS on my primary line, which won’t be possible because I’ll depend on an eSIM. I’m not sure what is my “WhatsApp handle” either if such a thing exists. What is I prefer to use my email address so people can find me? I should probably spend an hour googling to sort this out.

And WhatsApp is the de-facto standard in most parts of the world, except North America.