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Because in my country historically the telecom companies are charging 0.30€ per SMS (text) and 2€ per MMS (text with photo).

So WhatsApp when they launched with their “1€/lifetime” offer on the iPhone 3GS they were the right app at the right time and became the de facto replacement for any kind of messaging. It’s insane how basically overnight they replaced msn messenger and Skype because it was so convenient (Microsoft never did a smartphone client for msn messenger, only unofficial ones. It was available on dumbphones but it used SMS from the plan to send/receive, nobody used it because you needed to be a millionaire to afford it)

SMS now in my country is only for receiving OTP codes, for the rest is WhatsApp, because still in 2026 the telecoms are still charging 2€ for each MMS sent and nobody wants to risk huge bills. This includes iMessage because if a chat suddenly goes green and you didn’t notice, it costs dozens of euro

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colourlessidea@sopuli.xyz ⁨2⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago

iMessage because if a chat suddenly goes green and you didn’t notice, it costs dozens of euro

There’s a setting in iOS to disable that from happening btw

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tyler@programming.dev ⁨2⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago
Your telecoms are ripping you off. SMS messages ‘ride’ on the normal connection mechanism to cell phone towers. If your phone connects to a cell phone tower, it already has the space and data to attach an sms and requires nothing else. SMS are ‘free’ from the infrastructure point of view.

Maybe lobby your representatives to make charging for them illegal and you’ll get proper messaging back without selling off your data.

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pineapplelover@lemmy.dbzer0.com ⁨4⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago
Well Signal would be pretty much the same as WhatsApp, it sends over internet not mms or sms

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- Wispy2891@lemmy.world ⁨3⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago
  The problem is that everyone assumes you have WhatsApp.
  
  You take clothes to the laundry? The “your order is done” notification is sent via WhatsApp
  
  Any kind of work stuff is also on WhatsApp
  
  You order food delivery? WhatsApp
  
  Amazon started to send delivery notifications via WhatsApp instead of email/sms
  
  And luckily meta is charging businesses 5 cents for messages via API or otherwise even otp codes would be via whatsapp
  
  At least here, being reachable only on signal means being a digital exile
  
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