SMS stopped to be status quo here (central Europe) because it still costs money to send each single text. It made sense when no other mobile communication option was available (early 2000s) but not anymore. WhatsApp or any other messaging platform is strictly better as long as your phone is connected to the internet.

Liked "If one side supports a feature and the other doesn't, they're still interoperable, just without that feature."

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This is what my group chats look like when texting with iMessage users.

how are they interoperable when one side uses a feature and the other doesn't support it? that's just degrading the experience...

and this is just one small reason why the industry decided against moving forward with this decades ago. it simply didn't make any sense then, certainly doesn't make sense now.

Sometimes, one feature can break the entire experience. If one side decides to do encryption in a particular way, the other side doesn't, they can't talk to each other. Of course, you can choose to not do that encryption, but then that proves the point that the unified standard can hinder progress.

Other than that, it can be death by a thousand cuts. If the rendering of a particular phrase relies on a specific custom feature, the other side might not see it properly. That can be multiplied by many times and make people frustrated, and worse, misunderstand each other.