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No. The claim that WhatsApp, Telegram, Discord, and Slack are already dead does not survive contact with the best recent audience data. In Ofcom’s 2025 Online Nation report, WhatsApp, Discord, and Telegram all recorded more monthly UK online-adult visitors in May 2025 than in May 2024. Slack is the one service where this article cannot give a current audience trend, so the claim about it is untested rather than disproven. None of the four shows evidence of disappearing.
The more accurate story is that these four products do different jobs, that messaging is becoming more connected through regulation, and that the way each service handles privacy is changing. Those shifts matter. They do not add up to a death sentence.
What the UK audience measurement shows
Ofcom’s 2025 Online Nation report uses audience data from Ipsos iris and covers UK internet users aged 18 and older. Its measurement period is May 2025, compared with May 2024. The table below uses those figures.
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Outbyte PC Repair FREEClear out junk files and repair common Windows errorsFree Scan →Outbyte Driver Updater FREEScan for outdated or missing drivers - takes under a minuteDriver Scan →| Service | Monthly UK online-adult visitors (May 2025) | Reach among UK online adults | Change from May 2024 |
|---|---|---|---|
| 44.2 million | 90% | Up 2.7 million | |
| Discord | 7.5 million | 15% | Up 1.2 million |
| Telegram | 4.3 million | 9% | Up 0.8 million |
| Slack | Not in Ofcom’s top-ten messaging table | Not stated | Not stated |
WhatsApp is also the stickiest of the group. Ofcom reports that 74% of UK online adults (36.1 million) accessed WhatsApp on a given day in May 2025, up from 64% (30.4 million) in May 2024. A service losing its audience does not usually show a rise in daily use of that size.
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What these numbers cannot tell you
The table answers one narrow question: how many UK adults visited each service in a given month, and whether that number rose. It does not answer several questions a reader might assume it covers.
- Geography. The figures describe the UK only. They say nothing about the United States, India, Brazil, or any other market where these services may behave differently.
- Visitors, not active users. Monthly visitors measured through panel data are not the same as the monthly active users that companies sometimes publish. The two counts use different definitions and should not be compared directly.
- A custom service list. Ofcom states that its messaging-service list is custom-defined. A service that is absent from the table has not been shown to have zero use.
- Slack’s absence. Slack does not appear in the top-ten messaging table. That is a gap in this measurement, not evidence of decline. Microsoft Teams’ desktop use is also underrepresented in the same measurement, which matters for any workplace-chat comparison.
Four products with different jobs
The title groups these services as if they compete for the same thing. They do not, and treating them as one market hides most of the useful analysis.
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WhatsApp: personal and small-group messaging
WhatsApp’s reach in the UK is driven by private one-to-one and small-group communication. Its size makes it the default for many people’s contact lists, which is a different reason to keep using it than a preference for its features.
Telegram: messaging with channels
Telegram’s UK audience is smaller at 4.3 million monthly visitors. Its measured growth is real but modest. The sources examined for this article do not describe its usage patterns in detail, so readers should check its own documentation before drawing conclusions about how it is used.
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Discord: real-time voice, video, and text in servers
Ofcom describes Discord as real-time voice, video, and text within user-created groups, called servers. This is a community-first product. Its audience is measured in the same way as the messaging apps, but its value to a user depends on the communities they belong to rather than on their personal contact list.
Slack: workplace collaboration
Slack is a workplace chat and collaboration tool. The UK measurement does not capture it in the top-ten table, and the sources examined for this article did not establish a current, Slack-specific audience trend. Any claim that Slack is dying would need its own market-specific data, which this article does not have.
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Encryption: a per-service and per-feature question
End-to-end encryption, or E2EE, means that only the sender and recipient can read the content. A single “E2EE” label does not describe the whole security picture, because services often apply it to some features and not others. The table below separates text from voice and video, and notes where the sources examined here are silent.
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| Service | Text messages | Voice and video calls | Caveats |
|---|---|---|---|
| Personal messages are E2EE, according to WhatsApp’s own explainer | Personal calls are E2EE, according to the same explainer | Metadata is handled differently from message content. Conversations with Meta AI are treated differently when a user chooses to message it. | |
| Discord | Not addressed in the Discord announcement examined here | E2EE is standard for every voice and video call, with no opt-in required, according to Discord’s May 18, 2026 announcement | Stage channels are excluded from the change. |
| Telegram | Not stated in the sources examined | Not stated in the sources examined | Check Telegram’s own documentation for each chat type. |
| Slack | Not stated in the sources examined | Not stated in the sources examined | Check Slack’s own security documentation for workspace-level settings. |
The Discord announcement, written by Mark Smith and dated May 18, 2026, states: “End-to-end Encryption is now standard for every voice and video call on Discord, outside of stage channels. No opt-in required.” WhatsApp’s position is set out in its own explainer. Both are company statements. They are not independent audits, and they should be read as what each company says it does.
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Interoperability is real, but limited
The most concrete change to messaging is regulatory. Under the EU’s Digital Markets Act, large messaging platforms must allow interoperability with third-party services. The European Commission’s messaging interoperability guidance states: “In November 2025, the two first third-party NIICS interoperable with WhatsApp were launched.”
That sentence describes a beginning, not a finished system. Several limits apply:
- The obligations are phased rather than immediate.
- They apply within the EU, so they do not describe the situation in the UK or elsewhere.
- Participation is optional for users. A user has to choose to exchange messages with a third-party service.
- Feature support depends on which services take part. A message type that works with one partner may not work with another.
Interoperability could weaken one reason people stay inside a single app. If a contact on another service can reach you, the cost of switching drops. It does not follow that people will switch in large numbers, or that any one app will lose its audience as a result.
Why people keep using services they complain about
Dissatisfaction and departure are different things. The most plausible reasons a service stays useful despite criticism are practical rather than measured in the sources examined here. These are analysis, not findings:
- Contact networks. If your family, friends, or clients are on WhatsApp, the app remains useful even if you dislike its privacy policy or its interface changes.
- Shared spaces. A Discord server, a Telegram channel, or a Slack workspace may hold years of community or work history that cannot be moved easily.
- Switching costs. Moving a group to a new app means persuading every member, and most people do not do that unless the old app stops working for them.
How to test a claim like this yourself
- Identify the market. Ask whether the data covers your country, or the whole world.
- Check the metric. Monthly visitors, reach, daily use, and monthly active users are different measures.
- Check the date and the comparison period. A change from one month to another in one year says little about the next year.
- Check whether a missing service is absent from the data or simply not included in the table.
- Separate company statements from independent measurement, and read company claims as claims.
Use the same checklist on any “dead” headline. The point is not to defend these four products. It is to see which parts of the claim the evidence can and cannot carry.
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