Because of that, you need an apple device around to be able to deal with iMessage users.
In my bubble literally noone uses iMessage. More tech savvy use Signal/GroupMe, less tech savvy use SMS/Email. Family use Signal to chat with me, as I can steer my own family a little.
Also I sometimes open web-interface of Facebook, but any attempts to offer WhatsApp I answer "sorry no Facebook apps on my phone, no Instagram/Messenger either". Never had any issues with that. Although I heard some countries are very dependent on Facebook, so might be hard there.
By the way, I noticed it's not hard to use multiple messengers actually, sometimes it's even faster to find a contact as you always remember what app to look at in recents.
UPDATE: My point is that you can also influence your life and how people communicate with you. Up to a point of course, but it's not like you can do nothing with it.
Your green bubble? =P
My social circle is the complete opposite. We're all on iMessage (except for one group of extended family on Messenger), and we like it that way. I was the last holdout for years while I went from Android -> Windows Phone -> Android -> iPhone.
You've listed a whole bunch of alternatives available to you, but for some reason you demand that Apple change its unique offering into just another one of those for you. Why? Is that not a completely enforced monoculture?
Apple has always been off to the side, doing their own thing, and for some reason that fact utterly enrages people. They demand that Apple become just like everyone else. But we already have everyone else! And in every single field Apple is in, there is more of everyone else than there is of Apple.
Have you considered people like Apple products precisely because they're not like everything else? That making Apple indistinguishable from Facebook or Google is no victory, but a significant loss for customer choice?
Thanks to Apple co-opting phone numbers, there's literally no need to ever have iMessage for anyone
The machine I'm using now represents my choices and matches what matters to me, and works closer to perfectly than all my machines in the past
And yes, I have worked with macs, and no, the UX and the entire tyranny in the Apple ecosystem was not something I could live with
And yes, this machine is fast, predictable, a joy to work with and is a tool I control, not a tool to control me. If something happens to it, I can order the part with the same price that goes into a new machine, and keep using my laptop
Like, for phones, I want a phone which runs Linux, has NFC support, and also has iMessage so my friend who only communicates with blue-bubbles and will never message a green-bubble will still talk to me. I also want it to have regulatory approval in the country I live in so I can legally use it to make calls.
Because apple has closed the iMessage ecosystem such that a linux phone can't use it, such a device is impossible. I cannot vote for it.
As such, I will complain about every phone I own for the foreseeable future.
I actually agree with you, but I also suggest getting better friends.
And then they have iMessage, aka blue bubbles, which are kinda like Signal or Whatsapp or Telegram. Everyone in Europe uses whatsapp, and a lot of people in the US use iMessage. If you don't use whatsapp in europe, you'll have a rough time communicating with some social groups, and the same thing for iMessage in the US.
However, unlike every other messenger app I can think of, iMessage isn't cross platform.
Also unlike every other messenger I can think of, it comes installed by default and for some reason uses the same app as the SMS app, and also claims encryption but randomly switches to SMS and breaks encryption making it obviously the least secure of all the apps (and also backs up your keys to iCloud in a way apple can access them by default, neither here nor there).
Blue bubbles are when iMessage is acting as the iMessage app, and has encryption and can use features like sending high resolution photos, location, invites, and a bunch of other apple-specific features.
Green bubbles are when the iMessage app has converted itself into the SMS and RCS app, and has a reduced feature set, like being unable to remove people from group chats.
It's frankly a quite confusing decision to have two quite different apps built into the same app and indicate which feature-set is active based on the color of a UI element. I think everyone would prefer if apple split it into the 'Messages' app (SMS + RCS) and an optional 'iMessage' app which doesn't come installed by default, but you can download on the app store from Apple. I'm frankly surprised the EU hasn't forced apple to show a prompt for "default messenger app" on startup with the options being "Whatsapp", "iMessage", etc etc, like they do for default browser.
No, I don't think anyone would prefer that. People on iOS like iMessage, not SMS + RCS. Nobody is confused by it, they all know that green bubbles means you're texting someone who doesn't have an iPhone. It works seamlessly, it's just annoying when you want to have along conversation with a friend on Android because it doesn't have any nice iMessage extras available – that's why people don't like green bubbles.