Nah. I only use WhatsApp because friends and acquaintances of mine use it. I have NEVER had the need to send a video, nor a photo to anyone. I would be totally happy using iMessage or even SMS. The ONLY reason I have WhatsApp installed is peer pressure. No need for any of its features. No need to pay for it either.
Agreed, iMessage and SMS are both free, so why would I pay for WhatsApp again? With RCS starting to work better, I don't really see a need for 3rd. party messaging apps. I do like Signal, but honestly I don't have a need for it.
SMS is definitely not free. You may have a bundle that includes X (or unlimited) amount of SMS, but there are plenty of subscriptions out there (maybe not in the US) that charge by the SMS, or come with bundles of only having, say, 50 free SMS per month.
In all fairness, no one uses SMS, and no one uses iMessage (outside of the US maybe?).
WhatsApp is omnipresent in Singapore. For example, every business, every support channel, every delivery company uses WhatsApp. WhatsApp QR codes are everywhere (similar to QQ/wechat in CN).
Most iPhone users I know in Singapore never even set up their iMessage (which is also only available on iOS and is a total pain to get to work if you're dabbling in various sim cards, as is very common in SEA). So yes, there's a very good reason WhatsApp is very popular in some parts of the world (similar to BlackBerry Messenger (BBM) until quite recently in Indonesia). It's become too big to fail and took over a very very big portion of (private/business) communication in many parts of the world. And it 100% needs more regulation.
It's obviously very area specific. The only difference in the subscriptions I have available is the amount of data included. They all have unlimited SMS and calls, it's been that way for years.
I do get that I'm probably in one of the few areas outside the US where iMessage is pretty big, but even then SMS (probably RCS now) is how you communicate with Android users.
It also doesn't chance the fact that it make no sense for me to pay for e.g. WhatsApp, when I have the SMS available at no additional cost.
Fair enough, but it keeps working with your (old) sim. iMessage deregisters every time, and it stops working for me. And you have to head back in settings and register again.
I've found the process to be very buggy and rarely works.
in a lot of countries not called America / Western Europe SMS costs are high. Hence why Whatsapp took off.
Even phone calls there's nothing called unlimited mins / unlimted sms everything is metered - off-net / on-net data sold by bundles etc
with some carriers you can even buy whatsapp "bundle" where you can access whatsapp but not regular data
