in a lot of countries not called America / Western Europe SMS costs are high. Hence why Whatsapp took off. Even phone calls there's nothing called unlimited mi

in a lot of countries not called America / Western Europe SMS costs are high. Hence why Whatsapp took off. Even phone calls there's nothing called unlimited mins / unlimted sms everything is metered - off-net / on-net data sold by bundles etc with some carriers you can even buy whatsapp "bundle" where you can access whatsapp but not regular data