the poor countries use WhatsApp mostly due the fact that sms was costly.
so you're tryna to monetize against businesses serving poorer users. yes - they maybe more in number but margins are razor thin.
the richer countries where margins are higher - sms, email, etc are cheaper & permission less. so eventually most providers most settling on email & sms/rcs.
Interestingly enough, Instagram has none of this weird pricing stuff on their messaging API, despite being run by the same overlords
In a lot of those "poorer" markets WhatsApp isn't cheap-SMS, it's the actual commerce channel. People browse, ask and pay through it (India, Brazil, Indonesia, MENA), so even on thin per-message margins the volume and conversion are way higher than email/SMS ever hit there.
In richer markets it's still dominant for messaging across most of Europe and LatAm, RCS is still fragmented (Apple only just added it, carrier support is uneven), and email open rates are a fraction of WhatsApp's. So I'd push back a bit on "everyone settles on email/SMS."
Maybe I need to start looking at SMS/MMS proper, but that's putting a lot of information in the clear and giving up a lot of features.
Skimming the page, also note that the quoted prices are for marketting messages, other types of messages are much less expensive.
People switched to whatsapp because:
1. It was free unlike SMS 2. It was ubiquitously available like SMS (unlike BBM) 3. It was genuinely a good product.
This feels like Whatsapp (Meta) is rug pulling the users once everyone has moved to Whatsapp, almost analogous to what Uber did. Drive Taxis out of business with predatory pricing, and then increase the prices.
Would be nice if there was an easier way to get an API to message a small number of people though, without the ceremony meant for businesses that want to message thousands or millions