At least in the US, imessage gives apple an effective monopoly. Their are strong social repercussions for not having imessage. If you want to be included you pretty much must have an iPhone.
Apple is well aware of this and plays into it hard.
Apple is well aware of this and plays into it hard.
That's because people are idiots. There's nothing that iMessage does that whatsapp, telegram, kakao, line can't do. In fact, US/Canada are the only ones that actually use SMS or iMessage, as far as I know, and the rest of the world use other messaging apps. I have been living in Canada for 5 years already, and in no instance I had any issue whatsoever. I now use iPhone, but nobody talks to me via iMessage, it's all either Messenger or Whatsapp, or Instagram
If Apple is able to hold such a stronghold over Americans because of something so easily bypassed, then you deserve to be controlled, really.
Apple has been repeatedly requested to change the colour to a less ugly shade, or to give users the choice to disable the feature or to give Android apps an API of some sort so they can comply with whatever Apple's requirements and get the blue text boxes.
Apple hasn't taken action because they like the current state of affairs, they want the social ostracism of non-Apple users.