[enieslobby]

> messenger completely died when it started forcing you to use it on mobile and people simply started using other message services because half their friends wouldn't respond until they were at computers.

To counter this with my own personal anecdote, in my social circles this is not true at all, and messenger has become even more of the messaging standard in recent times.

[joshstrange]

A second anecdote, every single communication for me is over FB messenger or iMessage. I occasionally get SMS messages but I refuse to use SMS long-term with my android friends, you just miss out on too many features.

[thewizardofaus]

What features do you miss out on by using SMS?

[throwawaymath]

Encryption, authentication, delivery notifications, read receipts, typing indicators, group messaging, hyperlink previews, third party app integrations, (some) emojis, etc.

The experience of using SMS is spartan and incomparable to modern messaging applications like iMessage, Whatsapp or Facebook Messenger.

[TazeTSchnitzel]

All Unicode emoji work in SMS, fwiw.

[asdfasgasdgasdg]

MMS is hit or miss on WiFi too. (Yeah I don't have signal in my apartment.)

[joshstrange]

Read receipts, typing indicators, delivery receipts, unlimited message size (text), better sending of media files and links to websites like previews)

[murukesh_s]

Plus I believe SMS is not free, so you never used it as much

[umichguy]

Plus, if you lose your phone and you don't have your SMS msgs backed up, they are lost forever pretty much. With messenger, because they are not device dependent, they are still there. You can access them from any device (mobile or desktop) which is connected to the net.

I haven't used an SMS in ages...can't even remember the last time I texted or received one.

[davidjnelson]

Definitely. There are many friends and family members whose phone numbers I’ve lost track of I can easily contact via messenger. That’s amazingly useful.