Not every country has unlimited talk and text as a widely as others. I know my husband’s family uses what’s app because they can always hop on their WiFi or a neighbors and talk to family, but they can’t always afford to top up their minutes. The social drawback isn’t that they’ll look at you funny, it’s that they might literally not be able to communicate with you.
Add in that some of those families also play hot potato with phones, swapping who has what phone almost weekly, something that follows the login and not the phone starts to make sense. I know there are better alternatives to what’s app and don’t defend it, but getting them as a whole to change apps so they can all communicate would mean a lot of work and energy I can say they don’t have these days.
Boost mobile doesn’t even do financing, but they require you be with them for a year before they’ll unlock your phone. I refuse to go back to them after buying an LG Stylo, and then when I wanted to switch 6 months later they refused to release the phone. I ended up having to buy a whole new phone when I didn’t have the money to do so.