Comment by danaris
2 years ago
Let me propose a thought experiment.
Remove the color from the equation entirely, and what do you think would happen when someone without an iPhone joins a group chat? Do you think everyone would ignore the change completely, even though it would mean they'd lose all the iMessage features that SMS/MMS group texts lack? Or do you think they'd just be more frustrated about it because it's harder to tell when it's happening, but treat people the same?
Do you really think it has anything to do with the color of the bubbles, rather than the fact that SMS's featureset is much smaller than iMessage's?
Yes, because it's the other way around now: if you have a green bubble, you don't get invited to the chat in the first place. A different thought experiment for you: assume feature parity between green and blue bubbles starts today, what do you think happens? Do green bubbles suddenly start getting invites to group chats?
...Yes, and that's my point. It's not about the color, but lots of people are talking about it as if the color is the primary or sole cause of the ostracization—as if Apple marking iMessages differently than SMS messages is the root of the problem, rather than the disparity in features.
I'm not going to try to deny that there are some people who a) would shun (ex?)friends for using an Android phone, and b) continue to shun them even once the actual reason for that goes away, because Lord there are some petty, shallow people in the world.
I am going to say that I don't think it's Apple's or the government's business to try to fix that problem. If the government wants to force Apple to open up iMessage in some fashion, I think that's potentially reasonable, but holding Apple responsible for the cruelty and cliquishness of what must be a tiny subset of its users is just absurd.