> if you are not already stuck in that garden, why do it? Because SMS is a nightmare for international messaging and travel due to existing carrier policy? I

> if you are not already stuck in that garden, why do it? Because SMS is a nightmare for international messaging and travel due to existing carrier policy? I used to agree with you. Then I moved from the US to the UK, and now my phone's messaging is a fractured mess. International texting is expensive, but my parents and siblings are on Android and I'm on iPhone, so we can't bypass SMS by using, e.g., iMessage. As a result, I use Google Voice for my US phone number, which lets me send messages over a Web services instead of using SMS. But my wife is here with me on an iPhone, like me, so I use iMessage with her, and I get SMS from, e.g., delivery companies. People over here in the UK mostly use WhatsApp, so I have that for communication with people in the UK. This is also free, and I can use it with people who have foreign phone numbers!