Is there any reason, beyond corporate greed, for SMS messages to cost so much?

If I get it right, an SMS message is just a short string of data, no different from a message we send in a messenger. If so, then what makes them so expensive? If we’d take Internet plans and consider how much data an SMS takes, we should pay tiny fraction of a cent for each message; why doesn’t that happen?

  • Maeve@kbin.social
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    6 months ago

    I was late getting a flip phone, but I did in 02. Everyone else I knew already had mobile devices.

    • DBT@lemmy.world
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      6 months ago

      By 02 texting & cellphones were somewhat common. In 1999 people were only really using cellphones to make calls and they were less common than pagers.

      • Maeve@kbin.social
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        6 months ago

        It’s funny. My general region uses text but really only phones if it’s really important right this moment. We do have the phone conversations when it’s too much to text though.