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What kind of people still use phone numbers to send messages to people? This is exclusively an American phenomenon; the rest of the world moved away from SMS a
by shiroiuma 3y ago
What kind of people still use phone numbers to send messages to people? This is exclusively an American phenomenon; the rest of the world moved away from SMS ages ago. I don't think any of my iPhone-using friends or acquaintances even know what iMessage is.
- realusername 3y agoSame for me in France, nobody uses iMessage, part of the issue is the lower share of iPhones and the other part is iMessage being branded as an SMS app will mean it will never take off since SMS are dead.
- shiroiuma 3y agoExactly my point. No one outside the US (not sure about Australia) uses SMS any more, it's a ridiculously antiquated technology. I guess Americans still cling to it because it's a huge country and they can send SMS to everyone they know in the whole world for free, since everyone they know is in America. For everyone else (or Americas who actually have friends outside America), SMS is stupid because sending them internationally is horribly expensive.
- realusername 3y agoYes that exactly what happens. iMessage became the "your package is being delivered" app since pretty much only parcel delivery company are sending SMS.
- shiroiuma 3y agoYep, that, and 2FA, are the only times I get SMS messages. No actual humans use them now where I live, just automated systems run by businesses.
- pestatije 3y agoAdd to America Europe and Australia, the two places i know of
- danielbln 3y agoGerman here, everyone I know uses Whatsapp, Signal or Telegram.
- boring_twenties 3y agoWhatsapp and Signal can only use phone numbers, though? And Telegram requires a phone number (though you can also have a username).
- sureglymop 3y agoTelegram needs a phone number register but then you can text people only by username. Both Signal and WhatsApp have announced usernames, Signal already has a beta version of the app with username support out.
- happymellon 3y agoThey announced a long time ago. Unless it's an actual feature, you are tied to a phone number. All the examples require your phone number.
- sureglymop 3y agoThey (Signal) made this[0] blog post last week with APK downloads for testing it in the staging environment (completely without phone number). So if you want to test it, you can already do that right now. I think it will hit production in early 2024, pretty soon. Whatsapp is also going forward with a similar feature as a reaction to the Signal updates [1], although not entirely sure if it will work with no phone number at all. [0]: https://community.signalusers.org/t/public-username-testing-staging-environment/56866 https://community.signalusers.org/t/public-username-testing-... [1]: https://www.androidpolice.com/whatsapp-usernames-channels/ https://www.androidpolice.com/whatsapp-usernames-channels/
- deleted 3y ago[deleted]