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WhatsApp users will soon have a new way to chat and communicate with their friends, family, and coworkers, as the messaging platform is introducing a game-changing feature that lets you exchange a username instead of a phone number.
Historically you've had to give out your phone number to people if you want to speak on WhatsApp – the world's biggest third-party messaging app – but for some this proved to be too much of a privacy breach that they'd rather keep under wraps.
Responding to years of requests, WhatsApp is now rolling out a complete revamp to how you use the platform, letting people exchange and communicate through usernames instead of phone numbers going forward.
Some have likened this feature to many of the messaging platforms that were popular in the late 1990s and early 2000s, with people more likely to hand out their MSN or AOL Instant Messenger names instead of phone numbers, as texts were both expensive and inconvenient comparatively.
As reported by the BBC, the feature is currently being slowly rolled out across WhatsApp's roughly three-billion-strong user base across the next few months, with users being able to start reserving their own usernames from this week.
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After you've set your own username, you'll be able to provide that as the sole way to connect with new people on the app, and other users won't be able to see the phone number associated with your account.
Additionally, you'll be able to change or remove your username at any point — but usernames are unique and can only be taken by one account at any one time, so if you've got a rare or personal one you might not want to relinquish it just in case you can't get it back.
You also won't be able to use the name of celebrities and high profile officials like Donald Trump – even if you yourself share a name with that person – presumably as a means to prevent people from masquerading as someone they're not.
The introduction of usernames on WhatsApp has been branded a privacy-oriented feature by parent company Meta, with people understandably wanting to keep something far more permanent like a phone number private while still using the app to its fullest potential.
While many have received it as a positive change, plenty of others have lacked excitement due to the supposed originality, alongside highlighting some potentially major concerns that might arise from the issue.
"Oh look we have a feature from the 1990s," wrote one commenter on Reddit, suggesting that it should have been a feature from the very beginning — especially as it's something that's present on rival messaging apps like Telegram.
Additionally, people have expressed their worries about impersonation, even with the rules that block individuals from pretending to be a famous individual.
"That's going to be a nightmare," declared another user. "WhatsApp is already used to impersonate people. Hiding the most obvious indicator [of] fraud will be problematic."
While it'll be difficult (although not impossible) for people to mimic a celebrity, the real danger comes from when scanners are able to mirror someone's family member or friend asking for help with money or potentially compromising information, as it'll be much harder for the victim of these scams to tell the difference without a phone number they can authenticate.
