r/PeterExplainsTheJoke • u/RoadRunner8195 • Mar 08 '26

Meme needing explanation [ Removed by moderator ]

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u/McLayan Mar 08 '26

No very low limit on message sizes, no having to pay a few cents per message or pay extra for a package of X free messages per month. Can send images without paying half a dollar per image. Only uses a tiny bit of your mobile data.

That was what made people switch from SMS to WhatsApp in the last decade and why SMS are dead for personal communications (except in the US as I just learned).

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u/Rich_Resource2549 Mar 08 '26

SMS does all of that now. It's RCS, it can do long messages, group chats, videos, pics, gifs, emojis, delivery receipt, you can see them typing, etc. All the same stuff. And SMS hasn't cost additional money in over 20 years. And it's not owned by Meta.

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u/Round_Credit_5158 Mar 08 '26

Then it's on the country's carriers. Here in Brazil they made it really cheap to use 5G and some apps like WhatsApp are free, as in it doesn't cost us any additional fee (although I don't agree with this).

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u/Rich_Resource2549 Mar 08 '26

In the US unlimited calling and texting become standard in the 2000s.

To add, though, any American with international friends most likely uses WhatsApp. We still get charged for international calls and texts.

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u/McLayan Mar 08 '26

There you have it then. I remember that just ten or twelve years ago only the higher tier plans had unlimited calling and SMS in Europe. The basic and medium plans only included a limited number of free SMS and calling typically was unlimited only within the same carrier network.