I asked my kids about this. Both of them have cheap Android phones on a cheap plan, as do I. My phone is a $25 refurb. They know that they can get jobs and buy whatever they want, but it's apparently not that important to them.

I asked: "Have you heard of the green bubble?" Both of them said it was basically a non issue, kids figure out how to get in touch with the people they want to get in touch with.

The only exception was, my daughter said her violin teacher was puzzled why her texts were a different color than everybody else's.

From talking to people, I had formed the impression that people buy iPhones because they are the default, like IBM. Parents get the same thing for their kids, that they're using themselves.