That’s easy: unlimited SMS was common on most mobile plans in the US as early as the mid-2000s. Unlike the rest of the world, Americans had no financial incentive to use WhatsApp.
We had unlimited SMS by the time smartphones rolled around in the UK, we still decided not having some weird caste system based on what messaging app you use was the obvious choice.
In fact I remember my American mates were charged for receiving texts, which I never heard of from any other Europeans, so I’d say there was probably a stronger incentive your side of the pond
In the US you either had unlimited SMS or no SMS plan at all, in which case you got charged for every single message, sent or received. But I remember having unlimited SMS as early as 2003.
If you had no SMS at all then you certainly didn’t have a data plan, which ruled out WhatsApp entirely.
It’s not a weird caste system. It’s just that people have always primarily just used SMS in the US, and if the people texting all happen to have iPhones, then there are some extra features tacked on (from the perception of the end user). Having been in many many large group chats for various activities and events, where it’s never 100% apple and just SMS, absolutely nobody cares at all. It’s just that maybe some teens and tweens use the colors to judge and exclude, which they famously find justifications for doing in every generation, and probably even that is overblown by the media.
There simply was never an incentive to kind of force everybody to move over to e.g. WhatsApp, and people don’t bother to do something like that en masse without a need to.
@9point6@ardi60 Cross-platform, sure, but most are still controlled by single vendors, like the two billion people using WhatsApp (Meta), the 1.3 billion using WeChat, the 930 million using Messenger (Meta again), etc…
They don’t care so much about it. They’re just lazy. iMessage is the default messaging system, and it always works because it has SMS fallback. And Apple doesn’t allow you to use any other messenger with the same functionality. So they were essentially forced into it.
Other countries only moved to other platforms because carriers charged per-message for SMS.
It wasn’t some smooth-brained European collective brilliance.
I find it funny it’s called an American product as its iconic design was made by a Brit, CPU is manufactured in Taiwan and the rest is made and assembled in China
Most of my family here in Australia use iPhones, and by extension, iMessage. Granted, they also use FB Messenger, Snapchat and all the rest, but mainly iMessage. It’s the default and it works for them.
I can assure you that this is not a thing exclusive to the US.
I’ll never wrap my head around why America cares so much about iMessage.
The literal rest of the world has managed to settle on chat apps that aren’t locked into a single vendor.
That’s easy: unlimited SMS was common on most mobile plans in the US as early as the mid-2000s. Unlike the rest of the world, Americans had no financial incentive to use WhatsApp.
We had unlimited SMS by the time smartphones rolled around in the UK, we still decided not having some weird caste system based on what messaging app you use was the obvious choice.
In fact I remember my American mates were charged for receiving texts, which I never heard of from any other Europeans, so I’d say there was probably a stronger incentive your side of the pond
In the US you either had unlimited SMS or no SMS plan at all, in which case you got charged for every single message, sent or received. But I remember having unlimited SMS as early as 2003.
If you had no SMS at all then you certainly didn’t have a data plan, which ruled out WhatsApp entirely.
It’s not a weird caste system. It’s just that people have always primarily just used SMS in the US, and if the people texting all happen to have iPhones, then there are some extra features tacked on (from the perception of the end user). Having been in many many large group chats for various activities and events, where it’s never 100% apple and just SMS, absolutely nobody cares at all. It’s just that maybe some teens and tweens use the colors to judge and exclude, which they famously find justifications for doing in every generation, and probably even that is overblown by the media.
There simply was never an incentive to kind of force everybody to move over to e.g. WhatsApp, and people don’t bother to do something like that en masse without a need to.
@9point6 @ardi60 Cross-platform, sure, but most are still controlled by single vendors, like the two billion people using WhatsApp (Meta), the 1.3 billion using WeChat, the 930 million using Messenger (Meta again), etc…
They don’t care so much about it. They’re just lazy. iMessage is the default messaging system, and it always works because it has SMS fallback. And Apple doesn’t allow you to use any other messenger with the same functionality. So they were essentially forced into it.
Other countries only moved to other platforms because carriers charged per-message for SMS.
It wasn’t some smooth-brained European collective brilliance.
Because Americans are obsessed with iphones, as a status symbol and “American” product and it’s a default…no effort required.
I find it funny it’s called an American product as its iconic design was made by a Brit, CPU is manufactured in Taiwan and the rest is made and assembled in China
But but but it’s Designed In California™ , that makes it All American 🇺🇲🇺🇲🫡🫡
i assume you’re using the metric system too then?
Most of my family here in Australia use iPhones, and by extension, iMessage. Granted, they also use FB Messenger, Snapchat and all the rest, but mainly iMessage. It’s the default and it works for them.
I can assure you that this is not a thing exclusive to the US.