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With iMessage, you must commit to doing business with one company as long as you use the service. That is vendor lock-in and is what Google is complaining about. With RCS, there is no one company that you must do business with to continue using they service.

That's the same with WhatsApp/Signal/Telegram/others... unlike email which was distributed.

I'd rather be locked into a phone number than locked to apple though.

And with iMessage you need to have an Apple account, at least for carriers you have choices.