"Business on WhatsApp is tough now -- but am I really a businesswoman?" Exploring Challenges with Adapting to Changes in WhatsApp Business

TL;DR

This study investigates how a personal messaging tool, WhatsApp, is becoming a professional platform for marginalized Indian small businesses and how rapid platform changes affect their operations. Using 14 interviews analyzed through an infrastructuring and decolonial lens, it reveals that users rely on personal networks to adapt, while updates and monetization impose ongoing labor and a sense of undeserved professional legitimacy. The concept of coercive professionalization explains how large platforms monetize informal practices and push standardized norms that may not fit local sociotechnical contexts. The work offers design implications such as preserving legacy features, delivering localized, digestible updates, supporting peer learning, and implementing tiered pricing to better accommodate resource-constrained users, contributing to HCI and digital colonialism scholarship.

Abstract

This study examines how WhatsApp has evolved from a personal communication tool to a professional platform, focusing on its use by small business owners in India. Initially embraced in smaller, rural communities for its ease of use and familiarity, WhatsApp played a crucial role in local economies. However, as Meta introduced WhatsApp Business with new, formalized features, users encountered challenges in adapting to the more complex and costly platform. Interviews with 14 small business owners revealed that while they adapted creatively, they felt marginalized by the advanced tools. This research contributes to HCI literature by exploring the transition from personal to professional use and introduces the concept of Coercive Professionalization. It highlights how standardization by large tech companies affects marginalized users, exacerbating power imbalances and reinforcing digital colonialism, concluding with design implications for supporting community-based appropriations.