6 ms·

Slightly off topic, but I'm curious why the lack of MMS is a show-stopper for you. Personally I've always found it to be a waste of time and money; there's bett

Slightly off topic, but I'm curious why the lack of MMS is a show-stopper for you. Personally I've always found it to be a waste of time and money; there's better and cheaper ways of transferring both text and images (especially images due to the compression). Obviously you do have a use-case; please don't think I'm trying to say it's invalid, I just honestly don't understand what it would be and would really like to be enlightened.

0_____0 6y ago
No MMS means you can't do group texts at all unless everyone you're messaging has decided to use a different app. Certainly a show-stopper for myself.
- igetspam 6y ago
  Because I'm a grump, I stuck with google voice for years specifically because it didn't support MMS. It cut down on a lot of spam from my family. I did manage to push people to email for group conversations. SMS/MMS are interrupts where email has a some what built in understanding that replies will not be immediate.
kop316 6y ago
Like the other reply said, it's the only way I can do group texts with most of my friends/family.
cjbconnor 6y ago
I'm from the U.S. and everyone I know uses SMS/MMS to communicate, including a few MMS group messages. Practically no one I know uses whatsapp/telegram/etc.
- BuildTheRobots 6y ago
  Three followup questions if you don't mind: Does MMS make it easy to have a group conversation, or does everyone have to remember to do the equiv or "reply-all" (add everyone's number in) when sending a message to the group? Do you get free SMS/MMS included in your plan? (My American Aunt has always insisted SMS was obscenely expensive and refused to use it to communicate.) Do you get Data as standard with the plan? (Eg is it that people can't easily use WhatsApp because they don't have data when out and about or is it that people just won't agree which IP product to use in the first place?) Really appreciated; thank you :)
  - easton 6y ago
    - Most MMS/SMS apps treat a MMS group as a threaded conversation, so you only have to set it up once (or it’ll automatically populate all the numbers when someone sends you a text from a mms group) - MMS has been free and unlimited for the last decade or so on most major carriers (maybe more like ~7 years but we got it waaay before unlimited data made a comeback). - Data comes standard most of the time, most people have at least a gig or two a month, going all the way up to unlimited. It’s not a problem of data use (since you’d be hard pressed to burn through two gigs of text and meh resolution images), but it’s that MMS is a lowest common denominator. Everyone has it, so you know you can reach them (except for the 10% of the time a message doesn’t go through and you don’t know about it :P). I’m in the US, and I don’t know anyone who uses something other than MMS or iMessage (which is invisible and acts exactly the same) for most of their communication. Some of us have Discord but we only use it on desktop. I think my parents may use Facebook Messenger for something.
    - BuildTheRobots 6y ago
      Really appreciate the reply - thank you. It's always intriguing to see how the other half lives, as it were. MMS never seemed to catch on in the UK and never seems to be included in the free allowances which probably doesn't help (eg I have unlimited calls, sms, >100gb data but MMS still costs me 50p each). I think the only time I've seen it used in years is very occasionally when I ask an iPhone user to send me a photo and they don't realise I'm on Android and won't automatically have it funnelled via Apple, so instead I get badly compressed unreadable photos of printed letters.
      - ryukafalz 6y ago
        I think part of the reason it caught on here (US) is that it's been included with the plans for so long and as such is considered baseline functionality. You don't know if someone you're talking to will be on WhatsApp, Signal, etc but in the US you can pretty much assume the person you're talking to can receive MMS. ...until you can't, as this thread shows. This is also part of what's keeping me from using my PinePhone as a daily driver.
- CameronNemo 6y ago
  I am from the US and my family uses iMessage. I do not have iOS so they just exclude me from the family group chat. Feels good man.
cortesoft 6y ago
It is a classic network effect scenario; if your friends and family are using MMS, then that is what you need to use, regardless of quality.

0_____0 6y ago

No MMS means you can't do group texts at all unless everyone you're messaging has decided to use a different app. Certainly a show-stopper for myself.

igetspam 6y ago
Because I'm a grump, I stuck with google voice for years specifically because it didn't support MMS. It cut down on a lot of spam from my family. I did manage to push people to email for group conversations. SMS/MMS are interrupts where email has a some what built in understanding that replies will not be immediate.

kop316 6y ago

Like the other reply said, it's the only way I can do group texts with most of my friends/family.

cjbconnor 6y ago

I'm from the U.S. and everyone I know uses SMS/MMS to communicate, including a few MMS group messages. Practically no one I know uses whatsapp/telegram/etc.

BuildTheRobots 6y ago
Three followup questions if you don't mind: Does MMS make it easy to have a group conversation, or does everyone have to remember to do the equiv or "reply-all" (add everyone's number in) when sending a message to the group? Do you get free SMS/MMS included in your plan? (My American Aunt has always insisted SMS was obscenely expensive and refused to use it to communicate.) Do you get Data as standard with the plan? (Eg is it that people can't easily use WhatsApp because they don't have data when out and about or is it that people just won't agree which IP product to use in the first place?) Really appreciated; thank you :)
- easton 6y ago
  - Most MMS/SMS apps treat a MMS group as a threaded conversation, so you only have to set it up once (or it’ll automatically populate all the numbers when someone sends you a text from a mms group) - MMS has been free and unlimited for the last decade or so on most major carriers (maybe more like ~7 years but we got it waaay before unlimited data made a comeback). - Data comes standard most of the time, most people have at least a gig or two a month, going all the way up to unlimited. It’s not a problem of data use (since you’d be hard pressed to burn through two gigs of text and meh resolution images), but it’s that MMS is a lowest common denominator. Everyone has it, so you know you can reach them (except for the 10% of the time a message doesn’t go through and you don’t know about it :P). I’m in the US, and I don’t know anyone who uses something other than MMS or iMessage (which is invisible and acts exactly the same) for most of their communication. Some of us have Discord but we only use it on desktop. I think my parents may use Facebook Messenger for something.
  - BuildTheRobots 6y ago
    Really appreciate the reply - thank you. It's always intriguing to see how the other half lives, as it were. MMS never seemed to catch on in the UK and never seems to be included in the free allowances which probably doesn't help (eg I have unlimited calls, sms, >100gb data but MMS still costs me 50p each). I think the only time I've seen it used in years is very occasionally when I ask an iPhone user to send me a photo and they don't realise I'm on Android and won't automatically have it funnelled via Apple, so instead I get badly compressed unreadable photos of printed letters.
    - ryukafalz 6y ago
      I think part of the reason it caught on here (US) is that it's been included with the plans for so long and as such is considered baseline functionality. You don't know if someone you're talking to will be on WhatsApp, Signal, etc but in the US you can pretty much assume the person you're talking to can receive MMS. ...until you can't, as this thread shows. This is also part of what's keeping me from using my PinePhone as a daily driver.
CameronNemo 6y ago
I am from the US and my family uses iMessage. I do not have iOS so they just exclude me from the family group chat. Feels good man.

cortesoft 6y ago

It is a classic network effect scenario; if your friends and family are using MMS, then that is what you need to use, regardless of quality.