… is it possible to do any kind of business and/or have regular conversations without having to use whatsapp as a main way of communication?
If you’d like you can say in what country you’re living.
As someone in the USA, yes. I mostly use discord to message friends and sometimes Instagram if I have to (which is just as bad as Whatsapp but everyone uses it)
I rarely use SMS anymore unless both folk have RCS chat enabled.
I cannot. Brazil is entirely dependent on WhatsApp. I’d like to drop it, but then I wouldn’t be able to do a lot of things.
UK here.
Business yes. Personal communication technically possible. Personal would be really frustrating and limiting as most people would expect a more rich messaging experience than SMS allows (photos, videos, voice notes etc).
Checking in from Australia: absolutely you can. In fact, using WhatsApp for anything other than talking with family/friends is weird. I’m in one WhatsApp group for my team at work (that I never even check) and that’s it. I’ve never seen a single business with a WhatsApp account.
It’s been very interesting travelling through India and Europe though as it’s become almost ubiquitous it seems.