>2. People texting a lot (maybe other countries’ carriers used to just make texting too expensive?) Yes. US mobile plans gave enormous buckets (thousands) of S

>2. People texting a lot (maybe other countries’ carriers used to just make texting too expensive?) Yes. US mobile plans gave enormous buckets (thousands) of SMS messages a month to mobile users 10-15 years ago, so there was little incentive to move to other mobile messaging systems. Conversely, the lack of such generous SMS allotments in most non-US countries drove widespread adoption of WhatsApp/Facebook Messenger/etc.