The reason I originally signed-up to WhatsApp was because of spending more and more time in Brazil and realising how ingrained in society it is. Even though a lot of my friends and family there have iPhones, none use iMessage.
Reason is that it is also an interface for SMS, and SMS in Brazil is obscenely crazy expensive, some operators might charge 1 BRL per message or stuff like that (for context: 1 BRL is the price of a cup of coffee or of a bottle of water), using iMessage and having it to switch to SMS without you noticing can rack bills that are easily bigger than your wages.
It's not only expensive, SMS is dangerous too! There is huge amount of fraud around SMS and the “SIM swap” technique to clone credit cards and cause all kinds of havoc, some of them with the participation of corrupted employees from telecom companies.
speeder|5 years ago
Reason is that it is also an interface for SMS, and SMS in Brazil is obscenely crazy expensive, some operators might charge 1 BRL per message or stuff like that (for context: 1 BRL is the price of a cup of coffee or of a bottle of water), using iMessage and having it to switch to SMS without you noticing can rack bills that are easily bigger than your wages.
marc_io|5 years ago
graeme|5 years ago
Of course not everyone knows that and it isn’t the default so I can see how this is a deterrent in practice.