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Comment by izacus | Hacker News Reader

That is not true at all. Even close, why does someone always spew this stuff here? There's billions of SMS messages delivered every day in Europe - from businesses to people who don't have Facebooks WhatsApp/Messenger preinstalled.

Why is it so hard to understand that your little life bubble isn't the whole world?

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OP is saying in context of "Grandma" and in social context - "Grandma" getting singled out because of her life choices (Android) in 1:1 chats with another human or in groups.

> ...'from businesses to people'..

You see the problem in your comment?

I've lived many places in Europe and I'd say it's accurate.

It's not that text messages aren't sent, it's just that they are only ever a fallback for when primary communication channels are not available.

Pretty much everyone's SMSes are just MFA codes, "your pizza is ready", "your package is delivered", and so on.

Almost nobody that talks to each other regularly uses SMS.

Again, that is nowhere near true and it's easy to verify.

And we didn't even get to the point that the communications platform used instead of an open standard is owned by a single corporation - Facebook.

Really? I'm yet another European who only ever gets SMS from my elderly mother, for 2FA (usually only when dealing with American companies), parcel deliveries, and so on. Oh, and spam and frauds, that's like 75% of the messages I get.

Come to Germany. Enjoy the power of digital communication. I work in a town close to the city center in a new building and i have to go to a certain window to be able to talk on the phone. To have cellular data i have to go out of the building.

I had the same problem when using Aldi Talk, switched to Telekom and it's much better, but I am at the edge of the coverage area. I've seen it on the phones of the people that were visting me that Vodafone works much better in the house, but I don't want to work with them

Isn't it great only being able to use data plans on the train when they stop at a station?

> I'm yet another European who only ever gets SMS from my elderly mother, for 2FA (usually only when dealing with American companies), parcel deliveries, and so on.

I'm yet another European and even though apps like WhatsApp and Signal are very popular, SMS is still used very often.

Apps like WhatsApp do have an advantage like better UX, group chat, better allowlists, online presence status indicators, multimedia support, and multi-platform support.

Can you show such verification?

I'm from Argentina and here absolutely nobody uses SMS. As parent said, it's only used for 2FA, delivery notifications, etc (although some companies here do 2FA with whatsapp too).

I am also very interested in data to support your claim. I offered my anecdotical experience and you're saying (quite aggressively) that that is objectively not true. Can you please provide a comparison between the # of messages sent as SMS and messages sent through Whatsapp and other services?

> Almost nobody that talks to each other regularly uses SMS.

OP claims no one uses SMS at, and your reply was "I agree, no one uses SMS except for all these reasons they message all the time".

Also, it makes no sense to claim that no one uses SMS just because some people also use another means of communication like WhatsApp or email. It would make as much sense as claiming no one uses WhatsApp because they spend more time on Instagram or Twitter.

[citation needed]

person to person sms is pretty close to zero here as well

Nobody in Europe is using SMS for communication, because it is bloody expensive.

In Poland I pay flat monthly rate for all in-country calls and SMSes. It is internet usage that you pay more when going over certain limit. SMSes being expensive would be true story maybe 10 or 15 years ago.

What? SMS and voice calls are free in most plans.

I agree that these times people communicate over Facebook Messenger or WhatsApp much more than through SMS but that has nothing to do with cost.

Maybe for you, my SMS are over the top, because I am refusing to be tied up to operator via some monthly subscription.

Where in Europe? Most pre-paid packages have tons of free SMS, mine is around 5000 per month.

I am paying 10 cents per each.

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