Why would you or any customer want to receive SMS instead of email when most/all phones, even brick phones now a days, have internet? SMS, to me, feels like a way less secure, less functional, less portable, and more expensive email. It made sense back before basically every plan had a high/no limit internet plan, but now..?
The only real positive, so far as I can see, is the 'instantaneous' send/receive, but again thanks to big plans now a days your email checking every 5 seconds or whatever is basically free, making that benefit more of a technicality than reality.
> SMS, to me, feels like a way less secure, less functional, less portable, and more expensive email.
You can't port email addresses unless you own the domain. For the majority of people SMS is the more portable option because they can freely port their phone number to a different carrier.
"portability" probably refers to being able to access messages from multiple devices, which can be easily done on email but not text messages. People port their phone numbers to get a better plan, but that's rarely done for email. At best there's a handful of privacy conscious people switching gmail for protonmail or whatever.
Everyone just uses Gmail/Hotmail/iCloud/Proton which just don't have the port problem as carriers because you don't have any reason to port since there's no fees and no physical network, you can just accrue more and use mail forwarding with no problem.
that's another cost, have fun getting your emails dropped by microsoft because they don't like your ip addresses unless you pay someone else to send for you
Because to check email your active participation is needed so you must start an application while to accept texting no such action is needed. Thus for short information (read-and-forget) short messaging (SMS or RCS) is more convenient. Of course, you could use a specialized application to check your email account and filter those needing immediate notification, but if such a service is already available what is the reason to generate additional much bigger traffic?
I don't understand where you're coming from here. Both Android and iPhone automatically and passively check emails simulating real time connectivity akin to a messenger. What you said does apply to desktop, but comparing SMS to desktop email is rather odd to say the least.
1. There is very little actually wanted SMS comms between users and businesses. 90%+ of it is probably 2FA codes anyway, and the rest is tied to some potential transaction.
For the latter, SMS costing even 100x more as normal is irrelevant - we're talking about spending extra $0.1 on confirmation and reminders on a $50+ service (hairdresser, tire change, vet appointment, doc appointment, whatever) - so it shouldn't be disturbing to actual voluntary business between two consenting parties.
2. There's a fuck ton of small businesses out there. I'm not going to call 15 local restaurants, 5 clinics, 12 PV solar peddlers, 20 MLM representatives and a sex shop, to tell them all to "knock it off".
Fortunately, I live in Europe; thanks to GDPR, they don't dare. Except for PV solar peddlers and Bitcoin scams, which have a special place in hell ready for them - and MLM people, which are already in hell, but don't realize it.
Nah. SMS in its terminal stage after losing battle with advertising cancer[0]. There's no point in even trying to save or resurrect it without first getting rid of the sickness - marketing communications.
> 2. There's a frak ton of small businesses out there. I'm not going to call 15 local restaurants, 5 clinics, 12 PV solar peddlers, 20 MLM representatives and a sex shop, to tell them all to "knock it off".
Good because none of them are bulk sending sms spam. Or likely sending any biz SMS thanks to TCR.
Meanwhile the actual bulk senders of SMS are happily firehosing it to millions of phones, thanks to the protections they purchase - also thanks to TCR.
> There is very little actually wanted SMS comms between users and businesses.
In total SMS sure. And those corps that send the 90% pay TCR so they can keep sending that unwanted SMS. TCR is a good fit for the biggest spammers.
Conversely, 100% of the SMS I send to my customers are wanted; they pay to support them and SMS is how they want that to happen.
My customers have their own customers - who also want to comm using SMS.
For us, TCR has mostly killed off our SMS access to ur customers. None of my MNVO lines carry SMS any longer, because of the onerous TCR compliance burdens.
Likewise my clients can no longer SMS their customers - even though it has long been an expected part of their relationship.
To recap:
1) TCR harms small biz who send wanted, necessary and consensual SMS.
2) TCR also protect bulk senders of unwanted SMS senders, because they have paid for that protection.
Vigorously throwing shade at 1 while voicing no meaningful objection to 2 seems like an unfortunate position.
Just because an SMS originates from a computer does not make it spam. I like to be notified that my drive up order is ready or for a link to check in at the doctor.
That's why making each message costly is the way to go - it's not discriminating on what or how sent the message, it just forces sending to scale no faster than actual service of the business. A text or two per delivery or a doctors' visit is still a rounding error compared to costs of the transaction itself, but casually spamming hundreds of thousands of people becomes a noticeable cost.
You're right. Just the other day I got this annoying spam message from my local pharmacy - "your prescription is ready for pick up". Why would I want that? And my hairdresser too? "Reminder: you have an appointment tomorrow at 10AM" wow they'll send anything to try to get my business.
If these were legit businesses, they would send it to my email so it can be listed with all the GeekSquad invoices I receive from Gmail addresses. Of course, because everyone is just like the average HN user, they know how to set up intricate filters to prioritize the GeekSquad invoices.
> You're right. Just the other day I got this annoying spam message from my local pharmacy
Right. That's who TCR doesn't stop.
But lets say you buy a DIY home upgrade from a local biz and the two of you are in a support session and are sending pics and messages back and forth over SMS.
When your car is ready to be picked up from a repair.
When your table is ready.
When you want to schedule an appointment.
When your groceries are ready to be picked up/have things missing.
And so on.
When my car is ready to be picked up - they call me. Even if I just let it go to voicemail, I still get a real time transcription.
When I use Instacart, everything goes through the app where I get notified. I don’t know if Instacart has the feature. But Uber/UberEats automatically translates the text to English in the app. I live in an area where there are a lot of Spanish speaking gig workers.
I disagree. The vast majority of emails I get don't trigger a notification, as I get over a hundred non-spam emails a day. These are high priority things, so that notification coming in through a higher priority notification process makes sense.
Email isn’t instant. It is usually delayed by 30-40s, but quite often gets into the 20-30 minutes range. Hell, a few weeks ago it took 6 hours to get the login verification emails for my epic games account and couldn’t login.
Emails don’t bounce until they haven’t been able to be delivered for DAYs. With an “s,” so you won’t even know there is a delay until the message doesn’t even matter anymore.
I don't want to be online on my phone, except when I decide that I want to browse the Web because I have spare time or need some information. SMS is perfect when I want someone to reach me in a timely manner.
Well, luckily I live in country where SMS spam is not an issue. If I look at the inbox of our IoT-like devices in the US, my approach to communication might be less feasible.
SMS spam continues to flow. Largely from mass senders who can afford the compliance.
Legit SMS from small biz can't afford the cash and headaches.