>business texting

You mean Slack?

B2C - not team internal chats.

It will have “jumped the shark” once there’s an SMS button on the business listing that Google Maps displays.

Instead of the wonky/creepy Google demo which did speech to text and then analysis and then text to speech relayed over to the business, every business will just communicate directly with customers over text.

It’s not that this isn’t already done (to some extent). And more so in some countries outside of the US.

But I have no doubt it will become the primary/preferred way to connect with any business, to the point where you will text with an 800- number long before it would occur to you to dial an 800- number to get service.

Like for example, the warranty claim I just made on my Dyson handheld vacuum for a battery replacement. Search for “Dyson warranty claim” and they tell you to dial their 800- number. Now their phone helpline is absolutely the best of the best, but even still most people would [will eventually] prefer to interact via text.

Another example, making a reservation directly with a restaurant (which I prefer to do versus using OpenTable which will take a cut for doing nothing), is a perfect usecase for texting. Also ordering take-out if you already have a favorite order saved, obviously all the notification type things which make sense over SMS instead of email, making an appointment when a dedicated app is too much overhead, etc. etc.

You're way off on this one. A lot of those use cases don't work because texting is an asynchronous communication channel unless it's got some sort of automated system behind it. The reason you can't order takeout or make a reservation through text is because you come to an impasse if the person on the other end gets distracted and doesn't respond. The value in something like UberEats or OpenTable isn't in message passing, it's in state management. With UberEats if a restaurant closes suddenly or doesn't take your order within a timeout period, both you and the restaurant are notified and the state of your communication is updated, so there is no confusion. If you text or slack or whatever your order to a restaurant, and the person on the phone doesn't respond, you're fucked. How do you know whether it's safe to place an order somewhere else or not?

Sure, every restaurant could build their own automated system that texts you back and manages the communication, but that's never going to happen when there's already a managed, standardized service available.

You might think that, but when I was in Brazil, ordering food by WhatsApp was commonplace. The restaurants would, generally speaking, answer very quickly. Some would send you the daily menu every morning.

That is so nice! And I thought I had it made a few years ago when I lived two buildings down and three floors up from the best Indian restaurant in town and would call them to place the order then go downstairs to pick it up twenty minutes later. Calling. On the phone. Pfft.

The daily menu thing is especially endearing.

What is stopping this text-only paradigm shift from happening? What developments are needed before this happens? Why hasn't it happened already?

Twilio has given the ability to programmatically text anyone for years. Why hasn't this hypothetical B2C text business developed yet?

The work involved in setting up a server/dashboard for twilio to work is too high for it to be popular for mass independent businesses.

This hints that a "shopify for twilio" would be popular

Mobile slack is a terrible UX for short term engagement.

Or BlackBerry?