Messaging is done extremely differently in the US. All those group chats on Whatsapp or Signal would be done in iMessage because most Americans don't have Whatsapp or Signal, and Android users would likely just be left out of them.
There are 140M FB Messenger users in the US, more than iPhone users.
This discussion is baffling to me. People buy devices that have exclusive content and features all the time. PS5 has a ton of exclusive games. So sometimes a group of friends is divided: some people have Xbox, others have PS5. Also some have no console at all. And some people will make fun of others, some people will get bullied because of that. This issue will not magically go away if we force Apple to "equalize" the chat bubble color. Some teenagers will still get bullied.
iMessage is confusing. I get constant random authorization requests on my iPad because it got un-synced. Messages never come through to my Mac either.
Line is nowhere near perfect, and the app does have ads, but it works, it’s fast, and encrypted. People even use it for calling. I’ve literally never gave my phone number to someone for communication. Not even my coworkers.
It’s so prominent that data only cellphone plans are actually usable-and cheap.
I’m not saying we should all use Line (I would prefer Matrix). What I’m saying is there are so many communication platforms out there that are way better than S/MMS.