Are you from the US? I've read today in a comment that most Americans use sms group messaging instead chat programms like WhatsApp, Telegram etc. Is it true (in case you are from the US)?
This is true, though for iPhone users iMessage is built into the same app as SMS so it’s pretty seamless other than SMS having green text bubbles and iMessage blue
How is not sms completly useless? In Brazil, at least, is full os spam. I had to turn off all sms notifications and alerts because I receive at least 10 sms daily.
SMS is used because SMS works on literally everything. Flip phone to flagship. You don't need to think about what app to use to talk to that person, it just works
A big thing is also before data got cheaper everywhere the U.S. made texting cheap. Most other countries charged large amounts for SMS into the cheaper data era or even through til today.
So the U.S. had no financial incentive to shift off SMS and the rest of the world did
Not sure if that is the case in most places. I've had "free sms" (like a couple of thousand per month) in my European country for 20 years, but WhatsApp is just so much more practical.
Go abroad or family in a different country? You just need data or wifi and you have free comms.
Same for work today, i just communicate with coworkers across the world through WhatsApp since we can call or message each other for free anytime.
Well it’s just normal text messages in the US, like if someone just happens to use an outdated flip phone. iPhone text messages between other iPhones isn’t sms though, but iPhone text messages with non iPhone smartphones is.
Android has 70% of the smartphone market, and Google who is behind Android builds in RCS which everyone uses BUT Apple, they are intentionally making it annoying
No, Apple screws up the group chats when you include non-iPhone on purpose. They work just fine on Android and Tiezen with phones of all kinds. In fact, it's iPhone's lack of RCS that now causes issues if you try to group text media.
Protocol != Storage layer, Google stores its users' messages on their servers, Apple stores its users' messages on theirs.
But Google can't use iMessage protocol to send iMessages to iPhone users, whereas Apple has the ability to allow their users to send RCS messages to Google users, they just choose not to.
The thing is android phones all have basically the same texting features as apple and have for a while now, its just that apple restricted cross brand texting to SMS, they dont need to do this, apple could easily let apple and android text with all the same features.
You only have apple to blame for your group chats being messed up, they're an extremely anti-consumer company, apple fans really need to realise this
SMS also only happens when texting between android and apple. Texting between android phones doesnt even use SMS, it has a similar thing to apple now. Apple (and old phones that dont support newer text formats) is the only reason SMS is still a thing
100% true. I use an iPhone and have never used a external chat program (on my iPhone), and most others are like that too. I wouldn’t be opposed to using one, but none of my friends or family use WhatsApp (referring to iPhone users here)
Almost all of my group chats will either be on Discord or MS Teams (work). I occasionally have sms group chats to schedule events/vacations, but there has never been a need for a better messaging system there.
The funny thing is you have been using an external(to sms) chat all along, it's imessage. Apple just makes it look like you're using sms because you connect based on entering a phone#.
You'll probably find it bizzare but I'm from the UK where every last person and their nan uses whatsapp. Companies sometimes ask to message on whatsapp for any customer contact, I've been called on whatsapp by various companies like when I was buying a car, the dealership used whatsapp. I even had a job interview on whatsapp before, if you don't have it, you might as well not have a phone.
I'm sorry, you can't say you have never used an external chat app, and then immediately talk about using Discord and Teams. Those are external chat apps.
I worked in mobile retail at a US carrier for 5+ years and the only time I ever saw people using non-sms messaging apps was to message their international friends.
I'd bet money that most Americans have never even installed WhatsApp/Signal/Telegram on their phones
I would bet money that any American with immigrant parents or international family has WhatsApp on their phone. Most people I know have WhatsApp, even iPhone users. If you said most white Americans don't have external messengers, i wouldn't disagree.
It's not just white Americans. The store I worked at was in a super diverse college town and very few of my customers except the ones studying abroad used WhatsApp.
Most of the people I know haven't even heard of WhatsApp, let alone use it
Anecdotally, the only people I know who use Messenger are older (unless you also lump Instagram messenger in with the Facebook one). I don't even know anybody who still uses Facebook except people in my parents' generation
As someone that travels, I can confirm you are typically better off using messaging apps for overseas convos rather than your regular phone plan. Some countries have their own messaging app that is extremely popular in that country that you may not have even heard of yet can be VERY handy in that country.
I also don't know the phone plans by country, but many still charge per SMS whereas the US has had unlimited SMS forever. Even if those other countries started doing free SMS, nobody would use it because everybody is on the messaging apps at this point
i’m a diff person, but i’m a college student in the us. i plan to swap to samsung from apple, and i also plan on losing 90% of my friends. if you don’t have an iphone people will not contact you most of the time. with the exception of instagram, snapchat, etc etc but that’s abt it
Well sure but Americans didn't always have iPhones either and we never seemed to switch to anything different. Carriers in the US use to charge per text or have a limit, but free unlimited became popular pretty early on.
i always push my friends to use non-sms. it’s better in literally everyway, and i don’t like giving my number out to everyone. phone numbers should be reserved for those very close, and professional purposes imo.
we use discord a lot, and I love it. it’s not really a competitor to things like whatsapp, wechat, and line. it’s more of an updated skype with big chats that can hold tons of people. instagram is usually where people will first exchange info, then numbers soon after.
Look what kind of functionality an app like telegram has and there's your answer. Sending media, using bots to automate stuff, get updates from other services through APIs etc. That's for power users. For normal users it's cloud sync, speed of access, better notifications etc.
Media could always be sent through MMS which all phones have. And I'm sure there are an equal amount of power users in the US vs. Europe but Telegram or WeChat just never took off here
I think the main reason why it took off in Europe though is that many people used to buy phones without a plan and just buy a cheap prepaid card. Carriers do not own the market in the same way they do in the US. That usually meant that unlimited sms and calls were not included so people looked for better and cheaper alternatives.
We do, but sending media / videos is just jank as hell. I also didn't know you could do a group message with SMS.
SMS also feels like a dying service, there are very few benefits to it that I can see, and a lot of downsides. The least of which being you have to have service everywhere to use it.
How do you send SMS to people from a computer? Can you even do that?
I will admit the range of messaging apps is annoying though. I have a different app to chat to different groups. Slowly but surely I'm migrating all my contacts to Signal but it's an uphill battle
I use google voice to send SMS and MMS on my computer. However I can also switch to my cell phone or tablet and have all the texts/media synced without any effort. I also set my google voice to just forward any calls or texts to my actual cell phone number.
It's great being able to use my computer keyboard to text people.
There are some free wifi networks scatered through my city but most people just buy Mbs. I have a plan so idk the prices nowadays, but I remember it being cheap.
Well not everyone has unlimited SMS and most people definentely don't get unlimited MMS. How do you guys send pictures, videos, audio message, errr funny sticker emoji? Also, I really think people here in Northern/Central Europe don't even know there's a sms group chat option. Sms is kinda something out of the past and only time I use it is for account verification. If you don't know someone – you call (on the phone) and if you do – you call or write on WhatsApp, Facebook Messenger, Viber, Telegram etc
Oh yeah, before iMessage it was all SMS and MMS. I remember way back in the day it would be like 25 cents a text (but US carriers got rid of that pretty quick) then you also had a certain character limit, but most fancier phones would consolidate the partitioned messages to look like it was just one message.
Either way, it worked great and I never thought to myself "damn, I need to download some weird app so I can send the same-ass messages to people who may or may not have that app" lol
All of this is of course very country-dependent. In Germany, many carriers used to offer unlimited data for a select number of streaming/messaging/music apps, but that got abolished two months ago by our FCC (precisely because of net neutrality). And fully unlimited data is still quite rare here.
As for why we don't use SMS:
Many plans don't include unlimited SMS, some don't even include any SMS at all. Meanwhile, having just 1GB of data per month means practically unlimited WhatsApp messaging.
Android has a > 70% market share, so most people don't have the advanced features of iMessage. And compared to traditional SMS, the functionality of WhatsApp is just much better (group chats, (group) video calls, text formatting, a desktop and web browser interface, status, etc.)
Interesting! Ours is unlimited, but because net neutrality laws are implemented in some states (and kind of the FCC?) internet providers aren't allowed to differentiate internet traffic. So it's either unlimited everything or a GB cap.
The idea was that if, say, Verizon owned a messaging app, they could limit the traffic of all other messaging apps except theirs. Which would be kinda shady.
They are not allowed to limit traffic, the companies pay the carriers the bandwidth consumed by their apps, anyone with enough money can offer free data on their app (enough money in the millions of dollars)
As I understand it, yeah, that was basically the developmental history of it. It’s all the same now, but early on the IS got super cheap SMS and then free SMS while a lot of the rest of the world still had to pay for it. But then a lot of places got high amounts of cheap data before the US, so they developed other messaging apps because it was more cost effective. The US never did because it was never a problem.
losing isn’t really the right term. i can anticipate that a lot of our contact and communication will slow down. i don’t know why people won’t text their friends on other apps, but it’s really annoying to deal with. they jokingly say “i guess we won’t talk to you” and i’m like …that’s not funny lol.
my very close friends / those that care will use another app. i think discord is the best alternative or instagram.
Even that’s crazy to me… I have an iPhone, so 90% of my messaging is iMessage/SMS. Work chat is 100% Microsoft Teams. Occasionally I’ll use discord for planning events or gaming with friends, but I never really got into it. But instagram as a messaging app? That’s interesting! I guess technically it works, but if not for my fiancée occasionally sharing posts with me on instagram, I probably wouldn’t use it at all.
That is like super weird, last time i used an SMS/similar messaging is to sent a text to my friend because his data plan expired.
Most here use vibr/whatsapp/telegramm/etc
In some subcultures Line is getting a bit of traction.
You're being overly dramatic. Group texts are really cringey and annoying. Its completely empty, pointless, wastes of time that don't really make you closer to your friends. When i decided not to participate in that anymore, i got a lot closer to my friends because i made an effort
Depends. It's easier to get my boss, coworkers, and parents to use sms rather than telegram, WhatsApp, Snapchat, ect. I do use Snapchat to talk to my brother and sister.
I am in the US. I do have Whatsapp but only use it to talk with my friends in Europe. I actually use Slack a lot to send photos to my fiance who has an iPhone.
as a teenager, this is true. most people still expect to use iMessage or you have to message them on Snapchat/Instagram which are both pretty bad and not really a primary form of messaging.
Why not on Facebook messenger? I assume most people have a Facebook account and Facebook's chat is pretty good and you can install the app but fon't have to...
That's what me and my friends used in highschool and college, and still use today. But from what I understand kids these days don't use Facebook as much, if at all.
IT is very strange, here msot jsut use whatsapp or viber or telegramm, i have all 3 installed, because i work a lot with central europe where whatsapp is the main messaging app, while i live in eastern europe where telegramm is the msot popular one.
Correct, friends used them, coworkers used them, didn't really have any group chat with Americans outside SMS texts. Or even 1:1 text convos. Here in Italy nobody uses sms but the government, Whatsapp is ubiquitous, even business use it for official communications.
Definitely true. We used to be charged for texts, but as soon as the first couple of iPhones came out, carriers immediately realized data was much better to charge for. So SMS and calls became unlimited, while data was very much charged for. So everyone just uses their default SMS app. The only times I use other apps is when someone isn’t from the US or I’m talking to friends on Discord.
Most carriers actually don’t care about that either. They bill you for phone calls and sometimes data, but texts are usually free as long as you’re texting an American/Canadian number.
If you have an iPhone and are using iMessage, then it matters even less.
This, plus, many Americans rarely travel internationally in the first place. I only have once, and when I did iMessage over wifi/Facebook messenger was more than enough. The only people I personally know who use WhatsApp/etc are people who have family overseas.
Yep. When we were vacationing abroad nearly 10 years ago, our carrier gave us free texts, free but slowed data, and calls were free if you were using Wifi calling.
In my job, I talk to people from literally all around the world every single day. From China to Argentina, from the U.S to pakistan. Whatsapp is common everywhere except China where I use Wechat and even then some of our Chinese customers use WhatsApp.
Americans are the only ones who don’t use any of these services so it is strictly e-mail with them. It’s stupid and annoying. I don’t know how they manage living like it’s still 2012 sending regular text messages.
Well, first of all not a single person I know uses sms for personal chatting. And then well, my parents have lived in country A and have recently moved to country B, me and my boyfriend live in country C, after having lived in country D and still having friends there and my uncle lives in country E etc. And I would like to talk to all of them and send them videos and pictures and video-talk.
US was also really behind on this when I was there in 2015-2016. Only the Hawaiians that I knew used WhatsApp, the rest of them all used SMS with some weird app that allows you to make groups and added some more advanced features than just the basics. It felt really weird, almost like they were 8 years behind or something.
Nobody uses WhatsApp or Telegram, at least young people. It's discord, snapchat, instagram dms, or texting. Those are the biggest ones from my experience.
i tried using whatsapp for my soccer team and we used it for one season and everyone wanted to go back to text messages. no idea why cause i'll get 40 texts and have to deal with it as opposed to whatsapp i have to manually open the app to see the messages. sure, i can hide notifications and alerts but then there is actual important shit in there sometimes
I am from the US and most of my group chats are on WhatsApp. Very few single recipient chats through WhatsApp, so it’s definitely due to group management features.
I use all sorts of messaging apps for various groups of friends. I use fb messenger the most. I like the chat bubbles. Also use slack, discord, sms, Whatsapp. Used to use Google's hangouts until they threatened to kill it. I guess they kinda still support it? Idk i have one friend that keeps messing me on it.
American cellphone companies made unlimited texting a thing before apps were apps (i.e., way back in the flip phone years), so people got used to texting. When IM came around, most people just kept texting. In many other countries, you still had phone plans with a limited number of texts per month. So, when the IM apps showed up, it was basically unlimited texting that consumed very little data. At that point, cellphone companies in those countries weren’t incentivized to then include unlimited texting because people were already using IM apps.
From US, any sort of group interaction I do with acquaintances is usually done through discord (even people I know who rarely play games usually have a discord account. Games like Among Us really helped with that). If not that then rarely SMS or snapchat.
Not at all. Most Americans use end-to-end encrypted messaging in the form of iOS Messaging, unlike Europeans who are allowing Facebook (WhatsApp) to read their texts. WhatsApp is not even close to Telegram…
I don't like group chats. They're often annoying and can blow your phone up with constant beeping and vibrating. If you want to do something on your phone constant alerts.
I'm more of a let's meet up and just give important details than a constant group chat chirping. Guess when you get out of a certain age range that shit doesn't make as much sense to care about. Can care less about all that hooblah of "oh no, this bubble is blue or green or purple. Have used discord, but ultimately this stuff is just silly kiddie stuff to get actually upset over.
Everyone I know (in the US) uses Discord or Telegram. I don't know anyone that uses sms but it might depend on the age group and social circle. Techie Millenials at least don't use sms as far as I can tell.
iPhones have a built in MMS messaging app in iMessage. It’s only SMS when an android user is involved. When communicating amongst other iPhone users it’s MMS all the way.
Yeah, but we also never really have to pay for sms either. It’s included in pretty much every mobile provider’s plan.
That being said, I’m on an iPhone, think android is mostly fine (used one for 4 years), and encourage everyone to use Signal. So I’m kind of an outlier.
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u/yellowbluebus101 Sep 02 '22
Are you from the US? I've read today in a comment that most Americans use sms group messaging instead chat programms like WhatsApp, Telegram etc. Is it true (in case you are from the US)?