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Comment by nerdjon | Hacker News Reader

In the US we used text messages for years so just sticking with that makes sense. I guess most of us just never really saw a reason to move to anything else. Why would I when I have been communicating with everyone through my phone number for 15ish years?

I have honestly been curious why the rest of the world doesn't do this? Was SMS not used as much?

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It was, but was long charged per message, so things like WhatsApp were quickly appealing, also for group chat, that SMS never did

The interesting thing is that this was the case in the US as well (and, even worse: we continued with our strange custom of charging both for sending and receiving a message). I don't recall when carriers here started rolling out unlimited texting plans at prices that made it a no-brainer for most people. Maybe that was earlier here than elsewhere, which drove people elsewhere to find alternatives, but made it not a big deal to stick with SMS here.

(I dated someone for a while who had this very old grandfathered phone plan that she liked, which didn't include unlimited SMS. This was in 2016-2018; at the time she was the only person I used Whatsapp to text with.)

It was cost. In many countries SMS was still so-and-so cents per message long after it was both free in the US and WhatsApp was born.

You were actually late to text messages, not early.

The US still had huge pager numbers when consumers in the EU was all in on text messages.

For example this article discusses low SMS usage in the US from 2000:

https://www.nytimes.com/2000/12/07/technology/us-is-lagging-...

Just like you were late to dropping cheques vs chip and pin, the US has been a laggard in consumer adoption of some technologies. Might be something to do with the relative power of your state governments vs federal meaning your infrastructure is sometimes less co-ordinated, as a guess.

I can't read the article but going on what you said... that's interesting.

Then I really don't understand why did the EU just not stick with SMS (and iMessage). Like what was the value of going with a new app.

I was just using this same number with SMS on dumb phones... why would I switch?

SMS were expensive in Europe.

Interesting, did you not have unlimited texting?

I feel like unlimited texting was standard here since 2007 at least.

If my memory recalls correct, in Ireland, Pay-as-you-go was relatively popular for a number of different demographics.

Most networks implemented some kind of Top up €20, get 200 free minutes, 200 free texts, unlimited same-network texts, and X GB of data for the month.

WhatsApp came in, which meant that that all networks could now talk to each other using the Data allowance for free, essentially - which I think convinced people to use WhatsApp rather than dwindle down their network text quota.

> I was just using this same number with SMS on dumb phones... why would I switch?

We did use SMS extensively in the early 2000s. But many people also used things like Google Talk (and MSN Messenger on the PC) early on as it allowed you to send more than just text. MMS never really took off because not all phones supported it the same way and a lot of carriers charged for it (it also felt clunky).

Once you get used to one app, it's easy to move to another one. WhatsApp quickly took off as it was very easy to set up (install, enter phone number, you're done), worked on literally any phone OS and was simple to use.

It's a bit like wondering why everyone is using Slack when there's E-mail.

iMessage was a non-starter because the iphone was just not that popular here (and still isn't what the majority use in most countries), so using an app that only works with a phone that less than half of your friends use made no sense.

Because SMS sucks big time: limited characters, cannot send videos, cannot send images, cannot do groups, it was charged by message, the interface really sucked.

So the question is, why won't you switch?

In my home country, lots of people just had a BlackBerry because they wanted to do better chat. Then WhatsApp came, which did not require a BlackBerry worked in all types of phones (Android and iOS included), it used your same phone number, it did not charge by message, could do images, videos, groups, the interface was great, and it spread like fire.

> Because SMS sucks big time:

Let's look at these:

> limited characters

True, however for quite some time now smart phones have handled this just fine or worst case you would get multiple messages with "1/2" or whatever. With threads this is a non issue.

> cannot send videos, cannot send images

While technically true, MMS fixed that was was a standard that just expanded on SMS.

> cannot do groups.

I have done plenty of SMS groups with android users so that clearly isn't true and is achievable with software.

> it was charged by message

While true, Unlimted texting (at least in the US) was a fairly normal thing before smart phones so I consider that more a carrier problem than a SMS problem and since that predated apps in the first place I don't think its a valid argument.

> the interface really sucked.

I mean considering even iMessage still just uses the same interface. So is the really a SMS problem? RCS and iMessage just add a couple nice to have but far from required features (and in some cases like stickers ANNOYING FEATURES) so if you think the interface sucks for SMS are we really fixing it with RCS or iMessage? It doesn't seem like it.

Agai, why would you use sms with all it's problems, or iMessage that 50% of the people dont use when you have a better alternative that I'd also free?

Because iMessage only works on iphone and 70% of the world uses android?

That doesn't really make sense to me. If we were lagging in SMS usage, it was almost certainly because of one or two factors (I can't read the article you linked, so not sure if this is in there):

1. SMSes were fairly expensive, and we had to pay per-message both to send and receive them.

2. Most people I knew (I was in college at the time) didn't even have cell phones (due to cost?). My dad even worked for Verizon, and he and my mom got them fairly late. I remember going on a trip to NYC in the summer of 2000, and my mom lent me her cell phone for emergencies. I didn't get my own cell phone until 2002.

I don't think I knew anyone with a pager at that point. My dad used to carry one for on-call notifications for his job in the 80s & 90s, but by 2000 he had the cell phone. The joke in my circles at that point was that pagers were for drug dealers. I know there was still heavy (non-drug-dealer) pager use in the US back then, though.

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