I’m sorry, but I’m not sure I understand completely. Why would your phonenumber be long distance to them?
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NewNewAugustEast@lemmy.zip 5 days agoSure, I won’t use anything meta.
But it can be hard like I said. You want to make an appointment with a doctor, an electrician, flower delivery? They want your WhatsApp. You can’t make an appointment without it. They can’t fill out their billing system. They won’t call you on your phone because your number is long distance.
Everyone just expects WhatsApp. Makes it hard.
ok_effect@feddit.dk 4 days ago
NewNewAugustEast@lemmy.zip 4 days ago
Because people have cell plans (and no land lines anymore, like most places) that they brought from their own country or region that a lot of the time a phone call would be long distance. Or have text fees for reminders, or a combination of both. So the solution, a long time ago, was a single method that has no fees for either.
EncryptKeeper@lemmy.world 5 days ago
As an American the thought of your doctor requiring WhatsApp to communicate with you is just a foreign concept lol
turdburglar@piefed.social 5 days ago
sure but first, as an american, you have to make sure the doctor in question is ‘in network’
EncryptKeeper@lemmy.world 5 days ago
None of our doctors, in network or otherwise force us to Zuck’s apps lol.
turdburglar@piefed.social 5 days ago
sorry, the joke was about your ‘weird’ whatsapp communications vs our totally fuken stupid healthcare middlemen only exist to extract money from the doctor/patient relationship.
NewNewAugustEast@lemmy.zip 5 days ago
Imagine if every state had a different cell phone carrier or go back even further to when it was long distance even just blocks or cities over. Now imagine a technology comes in that doesn’t care what carrier you are on, or if it’s long distance.
That is kind of what happened to countries. Especially if you have people who work in one and live in another or have clients in another.
So even though now maybe it isn’t long distance, or carriers talk to each other, everyone is used to the way they have been doing it for free.
EncryptKeeper@lemmy.world 4 days ago
Perhaps this new European government push to get away from American Big Tech will free you guys of this burden