The only large group of people who still primarily use SMS to communicate person-to-person is Android users in the USA.
Every other country has settled on either Telegram, WeChat, WhatsApp or FB Messenger, or other niche apps. These apps work on both iOS and Android and often also Windows. I haven't sent an SMS in probably 12 years. I don't know anyone who has.
It's only in the US that iMessage is so prevalent that Android users have to use SMS, the only other way of messaging iOS devices. And the US is quickly becoming a de-facto iOS only country. It already has more than 50% market share, even 80% among young people.
With the US going (almost) full iMessage and the rest of the world having already settled on another app there simply no point to supporting SMS.
Do you have any data to back it up? I have trouble believing that, but I am admittedly biased against Apple devices.
That's obviously not true. I live in a European country where a lot of people are still using SMS.
But that's pointless to have inside the Signal app, which is for person-to-person communication. I wouldn't even want those messages in WhatsApp even if it could do it.
I do still occasionally get work conversation initiated via SMS rather than WhatsApp especially if that comes from a phone which is associated with a task or job. Like the out of hours mobile phone which is moved between people.
I think it would be more accurate to say that ongoing communication via SMS messages isn't common at all any more. They're like a protocol negotiation handshake.
Signal's rationale is just Signal's own reluctance to build an umbrella messenger. And given they do drop SMS, still won't introduce usernames it's very hard to actually sell it as a WhatsApp replacement.
And now, with WhatsApp supporting password protected cloud backups and up to 2Gb attachments, I'd say Signal will loose the userbase it acquired during the hype and Musk tweet.
In fact, during 2020 Belarus protests, Signal did nothing to support it's own operations during internet semi-blackout in the country, while Telegram tweaked their server side to provide at least some possibility to know what was happening in big cities. So what are the values of Signal — I don't even know. But they sure did support pillagers and rioters in the USA.
To be even more brazen, Signal is not Apple. They stopped innovating. And they don't have enough political power to convince people do things the new way. Even their zero knowledge server is worthless. Check out the story on FBI cracking down on the leader of some right wing proud boys type of armed group. They tracked him and then compelled to give up access to Signal.
Their innovation stopped at providing solid cryptography that was adopted by most decent messengers already. And they aren't visionaries with cancelling SMS.
UPD: the funniest part is that the service that drops the SMS support still relies on SMS to provide account registration.
This is just an unprecedented level of sarcasm.
Some months my data volume doesn't last till the end of the month. I use SMS instead of the Signal protocol then.
Yes I might be a minority, but if you're not the market leader, cutting out minority groups of users will not make you more successful.
What's your mission: Giving secure communication to everyone or become the next WhatsApp?
Source https://www.ofcom.org.uk/__data/assets/pdf_file/0011/222401/...
SMS decline is probably inevitable though.
BS. I visited city I grew up recently, met with a few (9+) people (25-32 years old) and only one of them had WA, most haven't heard about Signal, everyone simply uses SMS. It's simply multiplatform, works with their gradmas and no one wants to install __another__ app to send messages to people. No one cases about RCS that will be used to push QR codes and ads, people will use SMS for its simplicity and reliability. I'll be dropping Signal and moving to WA once Signal drops SMS support.
WhatsApp is a closed protocol owned by Facebook. It has its uses but relying on it is a mistake.
https://www.statista.com/statistics/271561/number-of-sent-sm...
The stats show a significant drop as mobile data became cheaper and richer services became available, but still quite a lot of traffic.
I suspect that the people I see using Nokia and Samsung dumb phones will continue to use SMS, so traffic will fall to a sustained tail.
https://www.statista.com/statistics/271561/number-of-sent-sm...
Basically, SMS used to be a big revenue driver for operators. That business has dried up almost completely. The notion of paying per message is just completely gone. So, operators stopped caring about SMS a long time ago. In the same way, call minutes are increasingly less relevant. It's all about 4G and internet now.
I think you just described the core of the problem: Signal has a very US-centric view of the market, and has no clue that SMS is actually still relevant elsewhere, and a low-hanging fruit for capturing user-base.
> The average mobile connection sent 51 messages per month in 2020, 17 fewer than in 2019.
I'd love to know the median, I assume there's a number of power users that drives up the average. Or bots that are sending out thousands of messages a day.
My wife's boss communicates with all her employees by SMS (mass SMS - works like group communication, both ways).
AddEdit: Airlines send their notifications and links to boarding passes etc. via SMS. Dentist and doctor appointments, other public office appointments (e.g. my upcoming passport renewal), document notifications (from pension fund insurance companies for example), public warnings ("Toxic fire nearby - close your windows"), and more, are via SMS where I live.
Or (bluntly): why not Matrix (and/or XMPP)? What makes WA so much better that you're willing to go all-in with this company?
Wow, it's really dead.
However most of my instant messaging is done on a computer using discord, so I might not be in the prime user base of these apps
> I don't get it how having a dozen of messaging apps and remembering who uses what is better than a simple SMS
Indeed, especially now that Telegram is taking off by times in Europe (in Belgium / Spain / France at least Telegram is getting used by a lot of people) and that some people now refuse to use WhatsApp.
In addition to appointment reminders from doctor/dentist/notary/whatever and delivery tracking numbers I still exchange SMS with quite some people.
It's not as if it was exactly hard to open and reply to a SMS you just received from someone: takes exactly the same time as answering using WhatsApp or Telegram.
Jokes aside, I see SMS as a useless protocol; because it cannot be used for identification, and neither can anything be encrypted nor verified without another communication channel.
It's also not in the power of the end user to decide whether or not their number gets reassigned, blocked, or does work at all. Most US people seem to think that it's normal to have "one" number for years on end. For the rest of the world, it's not true.
For example: If I don't use my SIM card to make phone calls (which get billed) for 6 months, it's gone and reallocated to a different person.
SMS is used by companies to send notifications and asking for confirmation, even (ouch!) banks. I haven't sent one in more than a decade.
Interesting, here in Germany, almost everyone I know has Signal and WhatsApp with some people using only one of them. Telegram I encountered from one US American living here, and from people into conspiracy theories.
Uh, I’m from Germany and had the same mobile number for over 20 years.
SMS is big in Europe (yes, Europe is not a country. I just mean "dozens of countries in Europe"). All courriers have plans with SMS focus.
Currently, it looks like they are focusing on social networking features: stories, emoji stuff, better link previews. Basically everything that competition already did. The roadmap is not public, so I wouldn't take guesses as what may come next. But...
..."dropping support of X as a feature" is some kind of new transcendent approach to product development incomprehensible to common earthlings.
I'm not taking anyone with me, they already have Signal and WA and obviously SMS. I'm uninstalling Signal and not recommending it again. I can already message Signal contacts using WA or SMS. I don't need Signal for that, and I'm not keeping 3rd messaging app.
It's a ̶̶u̶s̶e̶ pay it or lose it thing. AFAIK, typically applies to prepaid/pay-as-you-go SIMs, not on contracts.
For my case, it is that I have to make a 12EUR top-up every 3 months. The top-up credit will expire if I don't make another top-up on time. After a few months on zero credit, you get you incoming calls blocked. And after a couple more months, your SIM is de-registered.
Transferring your number is always possible, yes. As long as you're still the registered owner of the SIM number.
"Reduced" is a very kind characterization, even if it's literally true - in my experience (with Vodafone and Three) this means ~64kbps which makes even messaging apps functionally unusable.
Since I started traveling more, I use my eSim slot for a ~7€ data-only plan from one of the discount MVNOs just to avoid being caught in this situation.
As for Telegram, people mostly use it to consume news. It basically replaced RSS readers for common people. Although its install base is relatively high, I have yet to receive a single private message over Telegram.
Typically, if I try to reach someone but they don't answer I'll follow up with an SMS to explain what I tried to call for. If it's a co-worker, or an acquaintance, I'll send an SMS to make sure they receive my message. SMS is more reliable, doesn't require you to know which apps the other party runs, and it comes through to the recipient as SMS is a basic service in the telecom networks.
When I get to know a new person there's a transition to "oh, you're on $APP too", and I might starting moving non-urgent messages to $APP. But if you don't know the other party well or there's a question of reliability, what is an alternative backbone for messaging if not SMS?
Even two years ago, I had to actually change a phone number because I couldn't transfer my number from one provider to their own reseller. O2 Scheißladen.
Huh, I guess I got lucky staying with Viag Interkom and then O2 (which was an automatic switch when O2 bought them) for so long, I only really switched providers in 2020 which was long after the EU regulation was in effect.
SMS is:
1. not controlled by a single company
2. a different network than the internet
3. a fail safe for people who don't use apps or are unable to at a given time for some reason (inc 2fa)
4. a fail safe for a "small group of people" who are suffering the consequences of a natural disaster.
Though perhaps not economically feasible for certain companies, supporting redunancy is as much an honorable goal as privacy.
Here in the UK, whatsapp is the default first try, at least with anyone I've interacted with. The dog groomer even messaged me on whatsapp to tell me dog is ready, completely unprompted.
Apparently Germany has ~8bn SMS for 160m contracts (don't ask me why there's an average of two contracts per person), which is like 50 a year. Edit: that number seems to include automated messages.
Not in Hungary, you still have to pay per message here unless you choose the most expensive plan.
It became common to get atleast 1000 sms in your plan, combined with maybe 100mb of data back them, then unlimited sms with 1gb of data, and then slowly data went upwards while sms can't go up from "unlimited". 100MB is not enough to leave "the internet" running 24/7 on your phone, so internet-based chat services were unusable for general reachability back then (we're talking about early symbian and stuff like msn messenger era), and you just sent an SMS (becase 1000 is enough for everyone... except teenage girls back then(.
Users can switch to another OS if they really cared that Apple refuses to use industry standards, hamstrings their own mobile browser to bolster app sales, and violates antitrust laws with their ban on third party browser rendering engines.
This is precisely why RCS and MMS support aren't important. I just need Signal to deliver SMS authentication codes and notifications. For person-to-person communications I'll use Signal protocol.
I receive dozens of SMSes from banks with one time passwords for 2FA and payments notifications, from delivery companies to notify me about progresses in my orders plus some spam. It's easier for them to use SMS than anything else because every phone receives SMS right out of the box.
Group of people using it to communicate might be small, but group of people using SMS to get verification codes, messages from delivery company about scheduled delivery, doctor appointment reminder etc. will be for sure 90% or more phone users at least in Europe
So I find it very stupid to say nobody use SMS, because pretty much EVERYONE use them, just not to communicate with other, but to receive messages and you still need some app to receive these messages. So while I can communicate with almost everyone through Whatsapp I still need to use SMS app almost every day and I'd rather have all my communication consolidated in one app than must switch between apps to check the codes or other stuff, man I wish Whatsapp supported at least receiving SMS, actually I'm pretty sure that would be enough for majority of people which don't really need to compose message.
Users cannot switch to another OS because if they do they won't be able to communicate with social circle. This is also completely artificial because the networks have otherwise pretty much the same feature sets and are only distinguished by their accreted userbase.
Concurrent cannot compete because they can't gain enough users to get a critical mass
I wager that no single entity should have so many captive users.
Regulation is clearly in order
100% agree here, we've collectively picked convenience and shiny objects over everything else so often that we're left with a handful of companies with way too much power and reach
> Regulation is clearly in order
I disagree, or at least hope,this isn't our best or only option left. If it is the only thing that would work though, at least its something
I don't have your phone number. I was talking about my 4 Signal contacts, they are on WA too.
I love that "there are two big players in the market with a literally 50%/50% split" means that iOS dominates. iPhones have always been popular among teenagers, if Millennials are any indication it levels out over time. It's just one of many weird demographic splits, not some grand trend. People need to not fall into the fallacy that "something is popular with young people" means that thing will remain popular as they get older.
iOS is more popular among women, young people, liberals, professionals, upper-middle and high-income, people with post-secondary education, and urbanites.
As well as the inverse of the above Android is more popular with people who work in IT, and people who follow tech news.
There's a lot of people here claiming that their personal use is representative of their country, or of Europe as a whole. I get SMS from a lot of people. You don't, probably because a lot of the people you know are on Facebook/Whatsapp and it's more convenient for them to stay with that platform. That doesn't mean that they don't use SMS for anyone else. It just means that you are bubbled.
Yes, but data tariffs were also expensive, while you can send SMS with regular (no-data) tariff.
Personally, I use signal as a replacement for Hangouts.
I don't agree with your take or arguments, and you seem to keep branching off pejorative comments on their organization and product instead of actually discussing the points. I think the conversation would be more productive if we focus on the same point, i.e.:
* Focusing on what matters most is a good idea, as nobody serious about secure messaging uses SMS
* Your argument: irony-covered "dropping features is not a good product development approach".
* My counter-argument: it **is** a valid approach, why support a feature that was useful in the past, but it is now dying/not aligned with your core value proposition?
* Your other argument: their focus is on social networking, and some disdainful comment that "the competition already did it".
* My argument: how is catching up with well-established user behaviors across other messaging platforms a bad thing?
(edited for formatting)
now give me Matrix client with basic SMS support (I don't need even MMS) and I'm installing it immediately to replace my dedicated SMS app
I did same love with family as poster, from Signal with family, WhatsApp and SMS just to WhatsApp/SMS combo though already years ago after PIN nagging
Is this the comment you would give when someone says they intend to take a notebook with them when travelling in addition to their phone?
No one is branching off, but a pretext that your personal take on things must comply with some sort of argumentation protocol that is the only valid blueprint for discussion isn't convincing. Moreover you've managed to somehow unwrap you single comment into a fully fledged dialog while ignoring that their roadmap (the big picture) is not exposed to the public. Given we can only judge isolated decisions, they seem what they are — rather not aligned with the expectations of the userbase.
Personally, I see a pattern of Signal making news in rather negative connotation rather than positive lately.
When it got traction, I felt like it's a new day and the future is bright. But since then, they went with a series of rather ambiguous decisions that sidetracked from previous claims.
EOS for SMS is again one of controversial decisions, I mean, we're in a thread started by a person that went above to clarify reasoning behind the press release. And before it was a year of server side repos without any commits, and then the public got a feature no one asked for — MobileCoin integration. And echoes of intent about it are still heard across the table.
In fact, all the ios users I communicate with do it over whatsapp or telegram.
Today I had an ios user sms me asking if he could send me a voice message. I honestly have no idea if that would have worked but I directed him to whatsapp (that he already had installed) and it was frictionless thereafter. I expect I'll never see another sms from him again.
So if I'm not traveling I stay with the cheapest data option for my occasionally otg stuff and on heavy travel months I choose larger packages, because I found myself using more often, for example as access point to notebook.
I also have an Kaufland (Telekom) Prepaid card, that said it would provide basic, very slow internet, for free so that text messages over chat works, bur I don't know if I got the wrong APN settings, it has problems in my second slot or it only works if you top it up regularly, but that internet and rest never really worked, even the account management over the website doesn't really work for me.
Even cheapest monthly subscriptions have at least 500 messages per month bundled, with more typical monthly plans (~$15/mo) having unlimited calls, SMS/MMS messages and around 30 GB of 4G/5G data.
That seems reasonable: Company-issued phones, LTE-Routers, some undercounting of M2M, and gerneral churn (I changed provider so I had 2 SIM-cards this year).
This is a big call. I live in a country where SMS is still standard. Most communication with friends and family is done by it.
Can you please provide a source?