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Facebook Is Killing Text Messaging

Posted by timothy on from the funeral-will-be-awesome dept.

An anonymous reader writes "We've heard many times and from multiple sources that text messaging is declining. There are multiple reasons for this (BlackBerry Messenger, Apple's iMessage, and even WhatsApp), but the biggest one is Facebook (Messenger). Facebook is slowly but surely killing the text message. As a result, the social networking giant is eating into the traffic carriers receive from text messaging, and thus a huge chunk of their revenues."

6 of 270 comments (clear)

  1. Good by dontbgay · · Score: 5, Interesting

    Maybe carriers would reduce their crazy pricing models for SMS messages!

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  2. What a choice... by betterunixthanunix · · Score: 5, Insightful

    On the one hand, a cartel that charges ridiculous prices for messaging. On the other, a service which will not allow you to send messages to users of other services.

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  3. Rediculous markup by neokushan · · Score: 5, Interesting

    SMS has a ridiculous markup, in the thousands of percent - sorry, telcos, but the gig is up. You've had your free lunch and it's over, how about instead you give us better data options so you can at least make some money out of all these free services?
    Face it - SMS and phone calls are a dying business, data is the future so invest in your infrastructure, encourage its use and profit from the fact that nobody's likely to offer free universal data any time soon.

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    1. Re:Rediculous markup by fa2k · · Score: 5, Funny

      actually it's infinity percent markup since SMS costs telcos nothing at all...

      Great, now let's tunnel IP over SMS and get infinite, free data bandwidth

  4. Don't worry about the mobile carriers by __aaltlg1547 · · Score: 5, Interesting

    They're getting paid. Facebook replaces messaging because people are using it through their smart phone. So they're paying for data plans.

    They should get worried if people stop buying data plans.

  5. Re:Nope by GuldKalle · · Score: 5, Informative

    yes
    https://www.facebook.com/help/?faq=224049364288051

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