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Comment by asfasfo | Hacker News Reader

SMS is very popular in the US for historical reasons. Many users in other countries (like India) moved to products like Whatsapp because their cell phone plans charged per message but US phone plans have had free SMS pricing for years so we've never had a push here. iPhone is market leader in the US so iMessageis also heavily used since its default for SMS between iOS users.

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Interesting. In UK it was common (and still has I think?) for contracts/deals to include lots of free SMS texts but even then most people have readily moved to WhatsApp, Messenger etc.

In my mind texts quickly became like voicemails, something older people would use cause that's what they know but not something I'd want to use regularly if given the option.

The UK rolled probably rolled out free SMS texts later than the US; the US was one of the first markets that rolled it out. I don't know when whatsapp rolled out there but I'm guessing it pre dates unlimited SMS being ubiquitious.

iMessage has pretty much the same feature set as Whatsapp so US users don't really have a reason to migrate at this point.

We had free texts before iPhones nevermind WhatsApp. Not unlimited but hundreds of SMSs a month was common. That said another thread here implied that carriers included MMS messages in free texts, not just SMS? If so that might explain as MMS aren't free in my experience.

Part of the reason UK switched over quickly is because of much higher international texting needs which these apps also neatly solve. Your average American just straight up does not need international messaging capability

I’d find this surprising! I’m probably the only person I know who frequently messages (via iMessage nonetheless) with foreign contacts. In addition I’m pretty sure cross-state comms in the USA are treated like international comms are in Europe but I could well be wrong on this point (and as per xkcd[1] I’m sure we’ll find out soon if I am)!

[1] https://xkcd.com/386/

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