this post was submitted on 17 Apr 2025
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Unpopular Opinion

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~~Unpopular preference, maybe? I've worked the title a few times but can't get it phrased as a concise opinion. Regardless, I think it still fits the spirit of the group.~~

SMS Texting in 2025 sucks. The overwhelming majority of "unknowns" texting me are marketing BS (that I didn't sign up for), scams, and other junk. It's almost at the same state that calling was ~10 years ago. Even besides that, texting a friend/family member to have a conversation feels so... wasteful? It's something I used to do and now never would. Anecdote: I also barely respond to texts at this point unless it's a direct question, "I'm at the store, do we need milk?" "Yes." Even still, half the time I'd just call them to say "yes." According to my cellular provider, I've sent 16 SMS messages since March 25th.

If I'm trying to contact someone, I always just call them unless I know they won't pick up and have told others to do the same with me.

Counterpoint to this is that some people think it's rude to cold-call, which is fair, but I have a good enough relationship with the people I keep regular contact with so that they know they can just call back at their own decision. Other than that, I'm only calling businesses/customer support, so it's a moot point.

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[–] dual_sport_dork@lemmy.world 8 points 3 weeks ago* (last edited 3 weeks ago)

It's not even a contest how easy it is to determine an incoming text message is marketing bullshit and ignore/blocklist it versus the time sunk into getting to the bottom of a phone call.

I essentially have no reason to own a telephone anymore, for any reason whatsoever, including at my work except for the fact that dimwits incessantly keep calling me on the damn thing. And for added bonus points, they insist on getting salty any time we can't instantly answer their phone call. Which for the record is because I already have all four other lines lit up and staff on all of them, wasting 15+ minutes each on some inane query or complaint that could have been a 10 second email.

Everything could easily be conducted over SMS or email, and in fact I prefer it to be because this leaves a paper trail. I'd much rather send one of my vendors a nasty email than have to call and yell at them, because when I need to refer back to that previous communication I have an exact date and time and I have what was said right there in black and white. If I give a client everything in writing they can't conveniently "misremember" what they were promised to try to scam more out of us. What I wrote is what I wrote. It's all right there. If somebody tries to ask me to do something stupid and demands I do it anyway even after I told them it was stupid, I automatically have documentation of that order and my objection for when it all inevitably goes pear shaped.

Etc., etc.

Bury the telephone. Its time has passed.