You don't use the right back end, therefore you aren't cool.
It's absolutely absurd. I mean, about on par for teenagers, but gah... I can picture the conversation about "Your "friends" are complete morons, and you shouldn't feel ashamed or ostracized at what is probably one of the most silliest social signaling practices on the planet."
It hurts being an engineer sometimes. These networks are marvels of human ingenuity, and people take them and use superficial differences in UI and completely miss the point.
God bless. I keep thinking UX/UI can't get any worse, but what humanity takes out of it never ceases to amaze.
It wasn't about UX. When Android users join iOS conversations, they lose the ability to use stickers, high quality pictures, etc... But instead of bringing iMessage to Android, Apple has intentionally created a way to get teenagers to look down on non-Apple users (yes, it's seen as a major status symbol, too) to promote their products.
Is there a relevant law or court case that takes sectors of consumers into account? That one could be more relevant because they are vulnerable, or less relevant because the devices are bought in their parents name.
IOS is 100% of the iPhone market though, given that unlike Windows in the PC market, Apple disallows installing an alternative OS, and an alternative app store in addition to disallowing alternate browsers.