Why is that your threshold for believing that Apple cares about user privacy? The ecosystem they've built so far has had significant time and effort invested into it to make it privacy friendly.
But they don't because when their own customers communicate with others customers the conversation is no longer private and if they aren't sufficiently technically knowledgeable then their own customers might not even know it's not secure.
Funny, I think nearly every article coming out about the location tracking, reading your contacts, reading your messages, and even malware on mobile has come out saying roughly "it's on android, but a much lesser version is on iOS" or even better "only on android."
So... what exactly did we lose with buying an iPhone in the context of this conversation? The ability to change the launcher?
Maybe you're ok with apple's limitations, I'm not. That's ok because I'm not you and I'm not asking/forcing you to change anything. So what exactly is your point? Choice is a wonderful thing.
Not saying I agree with this line of thinking but I personally think cross platform iMessage would benefit iMessage users privacy significantly. You can't control what OS your friends use.
I think the real reason why might be something along the lines of anti SPAM or botting; iMessage seems to require an authentic, unleaked serial number to connect, as I found out a while ago when connecting my Hackintosh. (I succeeded but I have a feeling many real Mac serial numbers get banned from iCloud by Hackintosh users sniping them out of pictures in eBay listings and whatnot.
I think this jab is unwarranted. Android with security updates is not significantly less secure. Talking historically, Android started with more security measures than iOS, with app sandboxing from the get go. Nowadays modern devices contain dm-verity for verified boot, layered security at various levels including SELinux, etc.
Not suggesting there hasn't been more security issues with Android overall, but there's also more devices and more available source code with Android, and iOS is far from having a clean track record for exploits either. If it did, you wouldn't be so limited in which versions of iOS you could restore in iTunes...
Looks to me like where Apple is heading is offering some kind of "Apple Plus" subscription that bundles all their services, including iMessage. I predict that over time this will evolve to encompass more platforms. So iMessage will be available for Android but not for free.
That's fine with me, I'm not suggesting privacy should be free but they can't pay me enough to use their OS or hardware. I would however entertain the idea of using their services if they are available on my hardware choice.
You’re likely to get your wish. I think Apple has realized that they need to offer their services on non Apple platforms if they want to continue to grow. We’re seeing some early signs of this already.