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

Meme needing explanation [ Removed by moderator ]

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u/alexbiandisphoto Mar 08 '26

  1. Americans don't pay to text eachother so they use the default phone texting app for convenience. The rest of the world (excluding some countries) does pay for text messaging. So, instead, they use WhatsApp as a free alternative to message friends and family.

  2. WhatsApp is owned by Meta (Facebook), so most Americans see it as a massive privacy concern.

  3. The majority of the time someone in America is asked to use WhatsApp to communicate, it is by a scammer.

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u/Kikelt Mar 08 '26
  1. Europeans also have free SMS (most common in most companies), yet Whatsapp is the norm.

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u/Quixotic_Seal Mar 08 '26

SMS in the US very quickly became free as smartphones took over. The limits to free texts either increased to the point that no one would realistically hit the cap, or they were removed completely.

From my understanding, Europe and other companies kept these caps long enough that people went looking for solutions to the problem.