[bluGill]

SMS has been free for most people in the US for a long time now. For a while Europe was cheaper, but things have changed over the last 20 years, and they will continue to change. When SMS was cheaper in the EU, voice calls were vastly cheaper in the US, so when the EU would use SMS, the US would just make a voice call (at the time the US spent 2x as much for phone service, but used the phone 5x as much - I'm going to call that cheaper but you can read the numbers several ways).

Robo calls make sense in the US in part because we used the phone more (remember historic), and in part because "everyone" spoke English and so you could ignore language and reach a lot more people.