Xkcd: Messaging Systems
xkcd.com
xkcd.com
https://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2013/05/think...
Also, one thing that was pointed out in that article back when it was raised: as the company controls the application you install, and as the application neds to decrypt the data for you, there is nothing stopping it from processing the E2E-encrypted message and requesting the scan for any URL found from a central MS server. The same is true for Signal, Whatsapp and iMessage for that matter (and others).
You just exchange numbers and it works, you can send anything too, we'll, anything you can hyperlink to.
What we really need to cement SMS is cheap international messaging (unless that's already a thing and I just don't know the rates)
If you don't have Whatsapp in the Netherlands you're basically of the communication grid for others.
WhatsApp is proprietary software owned by Facebook, for instance.
A smartphone, you mean.
Personally I do have a smartphone that I rarely use, but my everyday telephone is a good ol' Nokia[1] that does what it is supposed to do (telephone and SMS) just fine.
[1] smaller, lighter than any smartphone and three or more days worth of battery
I actually mean a mobile phone, because I don't know anyone who only has a "dumb" phone. A know a few people didn't have a smartphone for a while, but they've all got one now.
Maybe some of my great aunts don't have a smartphone, but everyone else I know between the ages of 11 and 70 does have a smartphone with WhatsApp installed on it.
(It works & is genuinely quite pleasant, as long as you have friends & family who also have pixels).