I genuinely can’t recall having had a single standard SMS conversation with anyone in the last ~10 years. It’s all WhatsApp, Line, Telegram, IG, or WeChat.
I realize my perception is skewed by living outside the US, but the only people who SMS me these days are delivery services and banks.
I too live outside the US, and never use SMS for communicating with another human. It's all WhatsApp/Signal etc. WhatsApp is ubiquitous.
I'm curious — do Americans use SMS a lot (as opposed to things like WhatsApp)?
I was in US a few years ago, and from what I gathered most people did not use WhatsApp. Don't know if the situation has changed.
In Korea I never used SMS, just Kakaotalk 99% of the time.
So they still work. If anybody would send you an sms, without you having to create any new account, they would reach you, and you could answer. No need to "add contact", no need to login. In fact, it this person will still be able to send you a text in 10 years.
But in 10 years, most people will have moved on from whatsapp, line or IG to the new sexy thing. Not WeChat I guess, because it's becoming the credit card for 1 billion chinese.
And yet, you will still have an email address.
Honestly, as a consumer I would prefer that this not be the case. I want to be able to control the ways in which people can contact me; I actually keep a separate number for WhatsApp specifically so that people who have my voice number can’t find me on there.
> In fact, it this person will still be able to send you a text in 10 years.
Assuming my number doesn’t change, which anecdotally feels way less common now. When I was a kid it was normal for eg my parents to have the same phone number for 30 years, but these days people seem to switch much more freely.