Everyone knows, because anytime anyone talks about SMS/MMS/RCS somebody comes in to remind people that it’s mostly a US thing. SMS/MMS started to become cheap in the early 00s in most of the US (and unlimited free for users of the same carrier was common) and as carriers raced to compete by the late 00s, unlimited SMS/MMS was commonly free in the US, even to users outside their own carrier. All carriers had interoperability with SMS/MMS already. Even iMessage falls back to SMS/MMS outside of iMessage. It is pretty logical that SMS/MMS became what most people used in the US.
Elsewhere, Whatsapp came out when much of the rest of the world was still paying for the number of text messages sent or they could use a miniscule amount of their data and use something else.
I’m not surprised, that is a very strange arrangement and the conversation sounds nuts from the outside looking in.
Maybe start caveating it with “for those of us in North America” or something. From over here it really sounds like you guys are mashing random keys on your keyboard.
For the record, while SMS still being paid above a certain number was a factor, we were already vastly defaulting to messaging apps before Whatsapp took over. It wasn’t rare to give people your MSN Messenger info rather than your phone number even during the feature phone era. Texting was always more of a commercial thing and for finding people in the street rather than a thing to have long chats.
Everyone knows, because anytime anyone talks about SMS/MMS/RCS somebody comes in to remind people that it’s mostly a US thing. SMS/MMS started to become cheap in the early 00s in most of the US (and unlimited free for users of the same carrier was common) and as carriers raced to compete by the late 00s, unlimited SMS/MMS was commonly free in the US, even to users outside their own carrier. All carriers had interoperability with SMS/MMS already. Even iMessage falls back to SMS/MMS outside of iMessage. It is pretty logical that SMS/MMS became what most people used in the US.
Elsewhere, Whatsapp came out when much of the rest of the world was still paying for the number of text messages sent or they could use a miniscule amount of their data and use something else.
We know. It always comes up.
I’m not surprised, that is a very strange arrangement and the conversation sounds nuts from the outside looking in.
Maybe start caveating it with “for those of us in North America” or something. From over here it really sounds like you guys are mashing random keys on your keyboard.
For the record, while SMS still being paid above a certain number was a factor, we were already vastly defaulting to messaging apps before Whatsapp took over. It wasn’t rare to give people your MSN Messenger info rather than your phone number even during the feature phone era. Texting was always more of a commercial thing and for finding people in the street rather than a thing to have long chats.