I read about WhatsApp and how people can't part with Meta because of it, however no one on my continent uses it. Why is it so popular in the EU and other parts of the world?
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SMS used to be the standard way of messaging people on a cellphone. Since a European country is about the size of one US state, it's pretty common to have friends, family or other people you have to message in another European country. Many carriers still charge additional fees for sending SMS messages to other EU countries. So Europeans needed some way of messaging people in other countries for free. That's where WhatsApp came in, it's designed for phones and simpler to use than Email. In 2013, WhatsApp was bought by Facebook, which later became Meta. It's basically the same for other countries that rely on WhatsApp, they need to send messages to foreign countries frequently, which can become quite expensive when using SMS. Americans never needed WhatsApp, because they don't have to message people in foreign countries as often as Europeans, and they often have unlimited SMS included in their cell plans.
While it is historically true, carriers cannot charge foreign fees for EU members since some time now. They basically said to the carriers "now you stop being greedy fucks".
Since then the European Union is just one large country phone fees wise. Even non EU member Switzerland is included on the EU plan and Switzerland includes Europe as if it is national call/text.
But it was too late indeed, people were already on WhatsApp to avoid sms.
They can and they do. roaming became free but international calls are still expensive (not as bad as it used to be but still) calling a different country cost me about 20 cents per minute, that's 1 euro for a 5 minute call. unless of course I physically cross the border.