No - consumers will save $54 billion by 2016. They'll then spend those savings on other things.<p>It's a good thing.<p>But I'm afraid it's not the only industry about to get absolutely crushed by progress. This story reminds me of the time Steve Jurvetson (a VC of DFJ fame) discussed the amusing interactions he had with a large engine oil company.<p>He clearly illustrated to them them how, and why, their synthetic engine oil business ($10 billion a year) was about to get absolutely decimated by the introduction of essentially maintenance-free electric vehicles. He then told them that they had better diversify their synthetic oil cash cow, before electric vehicles came in and ate them for breakfast.<p>Did they bother heading his warning? No. Instead, they laughed in his face.<p>Everyone that services cars is next on this list - outside of brake pads and body panel beaters.<p>I wonder how long it will be before there's an article that states: "World to lose $15 trillion as AI and automation replace most humans."
UK: sms messaging here provides me with a <i>uniform</i> and <i>universal</i> way of contacting any mobile phone owner who want to be contacted, e.g. students I need to tell about a classroom change.<p>I just use a Web service like bulksms. In the UK and I believe Europe, receiving an sms message does not cost the recipient any money. I don't have to track who uses facebook and who uses twitter, they don't have to 'follow' or 'like' some institutional account.
Do people in the US tend to pay for individual text messages?<p>Almost everyone in the UK has an unlimited or close to unlimited texting plan (3000+ texts). Given that everyone's paying for it anyway, the actual revenue gained by someone sending a text is 0. In fact, because a text will use some tiny amount of infrastructure, they'll potentially lose more money the more texts people send.<p>Most people I know who use whatsapp use it more like an IM client for group messages rather than for one-to-one messaging. As <i>everyone</i> has more or less unlimited texting available to them, nobody uses whatsapp for financial reasons because there's no savings made.<p>This will only be an issue once people start to realise that they're not using as many texts and demand to pay less. I can't see that happening in the UK.
I'm afraid consumers won't pocket that $54 billion either as long as the carrier cartel maintain iron grip. Just look at what Verizon is doing. You can't even unbundle "unlimited text and talk" from their non-prepaid plans anymore. 1GB smartphone plan will set you back $90/month, which is only a deal if you fall under a small percentage that actually go over 500 minutes per month AND send thousands of SMS. Just keep buying ATT and Verizon stocks guys.
>Ovum highlights the rapid increase in the number of OTT (over-the-top) players, and demonstrates that social messaging is not a short-term trend, but a shift in communication patterns.<p>Who would have thought that SMS is not the future of communication.
Since i know about RCS and the aricle talks about it: It is mostly a pipe dream for operators, these services (file shharing, video calls, IM) already exist for much cheaper then what the telcos plan to charge.
This is all part of the IMS technologies that have not been taken up by the market for approx 7 years now...its a sad tale of too little, too late