[ghaff]

Yeah, as an American who actually knows a fair number of people overseas, there are probably a literal handful of people who I communicate with on a regular basis there and I use a variety of channels but SMS/iMessage works fine one a day-to-day basis for most folks.

[hpeter]

As an European who lived in multiple countries, I haven't used SMS in 10 years for anything other than 2FA.

[ghaff]

The US probably moved to SMS being basically free (domestically) before Europe did. As a result it seems that the US standardized on SMS (and basically transparently iMessage) because that's what was just there. I never get a Whatsapp message from someone in the US and rarely anything other than SMS/iMessage. I suspect the vast majority of people I know don't have Whatsapp installed. I use it with people I know internationally.

[bombcar]

It’s like Internet Explorer was for downloading Chrome; SMS is for authentication to get your WhatsApp running.