this post was submitted on 10 Oct 2023
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I think this issue is mostly a USA one, considering that most communications there have caps (data, phone time, SMS etc.) Paradoxically, the market there doesn't work very well and prices are relatively high. Big corporations take advantage of it to lock people to their ecosystems. There is a high probability that this issue, will be regulated by the EU, since US policy makers are unable to solve much more important problems. For them this is not an issue. The market has solved it.
I'd argue the SMS/MMS reliance in the US is entirely because there have been no caps on it for years now. Nearly all plans you can get here have unlimited SMS/MMS included, even cheap prepaid ones.
Having a fixed allotment of texts or minutes hasn't been a thing for over a decade at this point, and the only thing that's expensive now is data.
That was my understanding. I was told one of the reason for growth in apps like Whatsapp outside the US was that data was cheaper than texting (probably just per message cost).
It's entirely a US issue. Everywhere else just uses platform agnostic apps like WhatsApp, telegram, signal, etc to get round the issue. Americans hitch their wagons to a corporate manufacturer like an identity and then moan about people who buy the other brand having different coloured text message bubbles.
Way to miss every single aspect of it
What did I miss there?
You missed that standards should extend beyond international borders and are important regardless, but especially for international interoperability reasons.
You missed that using proprietary messaging apps made by companies is the actual way to dickride corporations and that standards are literally the only way to avoid doing so.
There's more to it, but those are the main pieces.