[hifreq]

It's a ridiculous comparison. How do you calculate "more widely" usage? I use Messages for all SMS messages. I've had maybe 5 group chats in Messages over the last 10 years, all groups are organized in WhatsApp or Signal. So what is more widely used in my case?

Messages is the default SMS app on iPhones. 130M iPhones in the US does mean there are 130M Messages users. So what? Some teenagers are angsty because of green bubbles? FFS do we not have bigger problems to deal with?

[cmiles74]

I don't think the core motivation in this discussion (or the monetary motivation from Beeper) is due solely to "angsty teenagers." Clearly there are adults out there, with money to spend, who would prefer to send an iMessage to an iPhone owner rather than an SMS message.

While I find it annoying to constantly hear from my mother and other members of my family how messages from me are "a hassle" or "always getting missed" or "never show up in the group chat", I am not willing to spend the money on something like Beeper. But some people are spending the money, it looks like there is a market there.

[hifreq]

In my bubble I switched everyone to Signal. I acknowledge that this is an anecdote and don't propose this as a solution. However, complaining about features in different apps is even less of a solution.

[Miner49er]

Do you live in the US though?

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.

[hifreq]

I do live in the US. All my friends are on Signal and WhatsApp.

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.

[Miner49er]

Interesting, my experience is very different in the US. I know very few people who use WhatsApp or Signal except for when they are outside the US.

[hifreq]

WhatsApp has ~100M users in the US. FB Messenger has ~140M. I would argue that Messages has a far lower number once you exclude pure SMS usage.

[cmiles74]

IMHO, it's unlikely anyone with an iPhone uses it "purely for SMS usage." That would mean we have an iPhone owner who only receives SMS from services, only sends messages to people with an Android device, has gone through the trouble to deliberately disable iMessage messages or lacks a data plan of any kind.

[hifreq]

I agree with you. The problem is that we conflate SMS and iMessage usage in the Messages app. Most people do use Messages for SMS-like messages (meaning not for exclusive iMessage features). E.g. looking at my message list: at least 40% of messages I receive are alerts, payment confirmations, appointment reminders, etc. These are SMS messages in terms of their purpose, even if some have the blue bubble and whatnot. Messages is a popular app in the US, but what we need to look at is how popular it is for specifically iMessage-exclusive features, not as an SMS client.

[Pufferbo]

Since I’ve moved out of the US and started using Line (the message service of choice in my country of residence) I have no idea why the US market continues to cope with SMS.

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.