I asked if people chose iPhone for the blue bubbles elsewhere a couple days ago, and while there was some good discourse on that post, the blue bubbles definitely also came up as a reason.
In my experience, when people find out my texts are green, they oftentimes would rather switch to a different platform altogether like Instagram or just not text at all.
Is this actually a deal-breaker in friendships out there?
It’s a US thing. It took european carriers a very long time to offer unlimited texts (especially across borders) which in turn helped apps like Whatsapp, Signal, Telegram. iPhones display messages/SMS from non-iPhones in green bubbles. Pictures sent from non-iPhones are displayed in lower resolutions because Apple doesn’t support some standard or smth.
The standard is RCS
Googles standard is RCS, just like Apples is iMessage. Apple is never going to implement a competitors standard. And despite being open, not even all of android has adopted this standard. Only a couple apps have.