For most of us Europeans, SMS is like using smoke signs or pigeons

It's not just the US, but you gotta realize that SMS has advantages. It isn't better than any other protocol, but it has the major benefit of not being tied to internet connectivity. There are a ton of places where data signals aren't as reliable.

It's universal, in that every carrier I've heard of has it. So it should work no matter what carrier you're on.

It will work right out of the box with any phone you buy because it's carrier based. You don't have to install anything else to use it. You don't have an extra login, no need to remember another password.

It's simple. You type, and that's it. No attachments (that's mms), no stickers, no junk. This makes it fast and easy for anyone to use.

And, you don't have to convince anyone else to install anything.

Obviously, there's benefits to data messaging, I'm not saying there aren't. I use other messaging way more than SMS, and have for maybe a decade now, though what I've used has changed over time.

But, yah, we yanks tend to value it more than the other countries where it's still important. That goes back to the pricing when data became a thing. Anywhere that data was cheap but sms merered, adopted things like whatsapp. Anywhere that sms was cheap, but data expensive used SMS by default. Iirc, Canada is the other big SMS focused nation. I think there's one or two in SEA, and the same in south America. I don't recall any of Europe having been sms focused, nor Africa.

TBH though, I tend to not get why anyone cares what another country uses within its own system. Like, if the EU did away with SMS entirely, it wouldn't prevent the US and Canada from having SMS. And if we did away with messengers via data (as dumb as it would be), y'all would still be fine.

The only time it matters is for international, or directly cross border communication. But there's multiple standards for that kind of communication anyway. Me and you aren't going to exchange phone numbers to use SMS, nor are we likely to use whatsapp together. If we struck up a friendship, we'd figure out what platform we both like, and use it. Since this is lemmy, I suspect it would be matrix or signal or maybe telegram.

I send SM's to my kids when they're on the go, as they religiously disable gsm data and only use wifi, which means they regularly don't get my WhatsApp messages.

Before they got their own smartphone I was scared that their data plans would cost me an arm and a leg, but it turns out they're extremely stingy with their data 🤷‍♂️

I think there is plenty of SMS usage in Europe.

It's easy as a technically savy user to lose sight on what less proficient users are using.

Yes, my parents both use perfectly fine their WhatsApp but they still send/receive a lot of SMS.

For context, I'm in France.

Yes, as long as there's charges for sending stuff to other countries, we are stuck with WhatsApp. :/

For exorbitant fees.

The only built in messaging app on my phone is "Messaging" that only handles SMS/MMS

In that case whatever you're using isn't SMS.

SMS has never supported group chats, and as such you should double-check what you're actually using to text with one another.

I find End-To-End-Encryption especially important, as it protects the things you say between you and others, so I advise you to double-check that