[jandrewrogers]

This is empirically false. I am on many groups that have (at least) several dozen people over SMS/RCS/iMessage. It isn’t ideal but it definitely works adequately.

I use Signal with some groups but that is a minority. I use WhatsApp daily but only people overseas use it. Many Americans have no idea what WhatsApp is.

The practical reality is that iMessage is a legitimately superior experience to other messaging apps, and the penetration is high enough in the US that many group chats never fall back to RCS or SMS. You can’t control that but as an observation that is commonly the case. Even when it does fallback to SMS/RCS, it mostly works for many use cases.

I’ve used every messaging app under the sun, having spent a lot of time overseas. But I totally understand why Americans don’t bother with WhatsApp (or Signal) even though I do. The value-add is non-existent in the US since almost no one else uses it and the alternatives just work.