Is there any reason, beyond corporate greed, for SMS messages to cost so much?

If I get it right, an SMS message is just a short string of data, no different from a message we send in a messenger. If so, then what makes them so expensive? If we’d take Internet plans and consider how much data an SMS takes, we should pay tiny fraction of a cent for each message; why doesn’t that happen?

  • Jimmybander@champserver.net
    4·
    5 months ago

    I pay $170/ month for two phones in the States. I wouldn’t say that SMS is free, but I can send an unlimited amount of messages with that plan.

    • Syn_Attck@lemmy.today
      6·
      5 months ago

      85 per phone? did you get suckered into a contract+new “free” iPhone or something? I pay 40/mo for unlimited everything in the States but could be paying 25-30 if I wanted to switch providers.

      SMS message costs are a scam, always have been. It takes like 1-2 seconds worth of talk time for the same amount of sending a text.

    • vpklotar@lemmy.world
      5·
      5 months ago

      Holy hell. Sure, I bought my phone (a OnePlus 9) out of pocket but I pay about 20 USD for unlimited calls and SMS with 5Gb of data per month (I can also save unused data from each month to the other up to 15Gb). This is in Sweden for reference.