Originally Posted by
stimpy
No, we had unlimited SMS in Europe back when Whatapp and the others began. I think the original driving force for OTT texting was from Europe to developing nations that had very expensive mobile service. Also within and between developing nations. The customers were mostly using WiFi in those places. And once that built up to a critical mass, SMS began to fall away. Although there are still many millions of SMS messages sent in Europe each day. I recall at one point, about 10-15 years ago, the SMS industry was larger than all of Hollywood (films, TV, music) put together in terms of revenue.
Yeah texting wasn't unlimited until maybe 5-10 years ago in the US.
And it definitely was a bigger thing in Europe before it was in the US.
There were a lot of apps which offered "free" texting in response to the US carrier SMS pricing at the time.
Skype was around and I think they had mobile apps. But they obviously blew their chance. I think MS may have bought them around the time WA took off.