Never seen the attraction to WhatsApp.

Group chat

very true (sorry: i haven't any modpoints left...)

central server in China

Why there? You aren't been racist with that?

the net is just another form of communication (and a powerful one!): most people are learning that yet

the two terms looks synonymous to me in this context :P

Hydroelectricity is the standard in several countries where capable rivers are present: Brasil here, for example, have the majority of his electricity generated by Hydro. Some authors do not call Hydroelectricity a renewable

It's suitable for business use (I'm setting up a ejjaberd.im server on my work, using data from Active Directory for authentication and groups/shared rosters :P)

I've used XMPP in the past, but since Facebook Chat disabled XMPP support and I don't wat to use theirs IM, I've closed my account there (used FB just to use the chat to talk to family members...)

remember XMPP?

Mainly spam and pseudo-spam.

Gmail spam filters work's so well these days

Linux is much less stable and usable than it was 10 years ago.

not for non tech-savy users

there is environmental rules too...

Whats the advantge now of making stuff in china with all the associated shipping costs?

production taxation, I think...

I recommend using https://www.libreoffice.org/ in MS-Windows, having MS-Office used only as fallback: this way you can gradually identify and fix the problematic documents (please, try to use ODF whenever possible =])

or not buy nothing, and just try a linux distro again