I agree. Part of the value is that it is a default application in every phone. My previous startup provides an SMS gateway that sending 500K messages each year to mostly SE Asia receivers (small amount compared to what other providers do) Even now although data plans are getting cheaper and more common, there are still a lot people NOT carrying IPhones, Androids, BB etc. If you want a ubiquitous push notification mechanism, SMS is still the only app. And maybe part of the reasons why the author is ranting about this is because when I compare SMS rates across different countries, US users are paying quite a premium for SMS as compared to Asia or SE Asia where I am located.