• echo64@lemmy.world
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    10 months ago

    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.

    • Natanael@slrpnk.net
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      10 months ago

      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!)

      • echo64@lemmy.world
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        10 months ago

        its good to be clear that we are talking about a time period when people migrated to whatapp, and the reasoning for migrating to whatsapp. and how the ‘text for free’ thing wasn’t a big motivator, (nor was it a new idea)

    • lemmyvore@feddit.nl
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      10 months ago

      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).

    • Stupidmanager@lemmy.world
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      10 months ago

      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.