Technology
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I'll never wrap my head around why America cares so much about iMessage.
The literal rest of the world has managed to settle on chat apps that aren't locked into a single vendor.
That’s easy: unlimited SMS was common on most mobile plans in the US as early as the mid-2000s. Unlike the rest of the world, Americans had no financial incentive to use WhatsApp.
We had unlimited SMS by the time smartphones rolled around in the UK, we still decided not having some weird caste system based on what messaging app you use was the obvious choice.
In fact I remember my American mates were charged for receiving texts, which I never heard of from any other Europeans, so I'd say there was probably a stronger incentive your side of the pond
In the US you either had unlimited SMS or no SMS plan at all, in which case you got charged for every single message, sent or received. But I remember having unlimited SMS as early as 2003.
If you had no SMS at all then you certainly didn't have a data plan, which ruled out WhatsApp entirely.