Comment by AlexandrB

I totally don't get this perspective. There are so many competing messaging platforms and they all work reasonably well on iOS. Because my various family and friend groups use different messaging apps I use all the following: WhatsApp, Signal, SMS, iMessage, Viber, and once in a while Facebook Messenger. I would say iMessage is kind of middle of the pack here. If I had to pick a favourite it's probably WhatsApp, but unfortunately it's owned by Meta - so I try to use Signal whenever I can. What's so special about iMessage that people think it's a monopolistic tool?