That will be because SMS doesn't support group messages and MMS is a different protocol entirely (believe it or not MMS content exchange is done via HTTP, using SMS only for pushing control messages[1]).
So unfortunately group messages are one of those occasions where superficially easy problem becomes a non-trivial feature to add.
[1] > the content is extracted and sent to a temporary storage server with an HTTP front-end. An SMS "control message" containing the URL of the content is then sent to the recipient's handset to trigger the receiver's WAP browser to open and receive the content from the embedded URL. Several other messages are exchanged to indicate the status of the delivery attempt.
Whether it's SMS or MMS on the backend doesn't matter to me as a user, it's still a fundamental enough feature of a mobile phone for me that I can't consider one without it.
Sending SMS basically comes free with a mobile plan in my country. MMS messages still cost just as much as 20 years ago (which is to say, they are priced unrealistically).
A European company selling their product to US customers, with (as I understand it nontrivial) US regulatory certifications. They clearly have the US market in mind in addition to the European market.
The key part there is "in addition". The US in addition to the rest of the world. You might have a booming tech industry yourselves that put America's interests first -- and that is absolutely fine for American companies to do -- but please don't assume that every other company in the world should too.
If a European company wants to put a lower priority on implementing MMS knowing that it's both non-trivial and non-free in most of the world -- not least of all their own country -- then I that's a perfectly reasonably thing for them to do.
I mean yes, it's perfectly fine and valid for them to make that tradeoff. I just think it's also reasonable to make potential American customers aware of that tradeoff though, because just about everyone I know of here would consider that a dealbreaker, and they might not realize it otherwise until they've already bought the phone and started losing messages (which can be hard to detect). Hence my post.
The thing is, people had. The majority of the conversation was yourself arguing that their decision is wrong because "America". At times it felt like there was little appreciation from your part that this isn't an American company and their target demographic is going to be much wider than just America.
So unfortunately group messages are one of those occasions where superficially easy problem becomes a non-trivial feature to add.
[1] > the content is extracted and sent to a temporary storage server with an HTTP front-end. An SMS "control message" containing the URL of the content is then sent to the recipient's handset to trigger the receiver's WAP browser to open and receive the content from the embedded URL. Several other messages are exchanged to indicate the status of the delivery attempt.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Multimedia_Messaging_Service#T...