Not everybody, and not infinitely far back. There was definitely a period where there were no free texts included (although I do think that by the iPhone introduction many did have it, but still not all!)
And also because Whatsapp was available on every platform, from the dominant ones at the time (Nokia and Blackberry) to the newcomers (iOS, Android, even Windows Phone and more obscure ones like Samsung’s whatever it was called).
wasn’t it the long distance thing? charged for sending SMS outside of your network or something. I recall whatsapp was the way to text your parents from one country in to another, even in the EU.
I know for a fact my fam adopted almost a decade ago, so we can text from USA to EU to SA to Canada. Family all over and it’s free.
This seems a bit revisionist. Everyone had an amount of smses per month that were free in their contract.
People switched to whatsapp because it was better than sms.
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Not everybody, and not infinitely far back. There was definitely a period where there were no free texts included (although I do think that by the iPhone introduction many did have it, but still not all!)
And also because Whatsapp was available on every platform, from the dominant ones at the time (Nokia and Blackberry) to the newcomers (iOS, Android, even Windows Phone and more obscure ones like Samsung’s whatever it was called).
wasn’t it the long distance thing? charged for sending SMS outside of your network or something. I recall whatsapp was the way to text your parents from one country in to another, even in the EU.
I know for a fact my fam adopted almost a decade ago, so we can text from USA to EU to SA to Canada. Family all over and it’s free.