> I'd love to see a standardized IM/Text protocol instead of 1000 fragmented platforms. I've got on the order of 10 chat apps on my phone right now, all used in different contexts.

Apple could easily open the protocol, but they won't. They also won't use any of the other ones so as long as you'll be using iOS, you'll be in the iMessage garden and everyone else will be in another garden.

> I'd love to see a standardized IM/Text protocol instead of 1000 fragmented platforms.

I'm hoping that's what RCS[1] will be (ids? And that's why I referenced it above). It's supposed to by the successor to SMS, but it's been around for quite a while and not adopted, so I'm not sure what's going on with it.

Edit: It looks like as of a couple months ago it's live in the UK and France, and just those two countries.[2]

1: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rich_Communication_Services

2: https://9to5google.com/2019/07/01/rcs-hands-on-not-quite-ime...

The problem is that, as near as I can tell, RCS will eliminate much of what makes SMS an attractive thing.

Try Matrix[1]. It's a protocol specification with multiple open-source implementations. It has federation so that you can choose which server to use (or run your own) and still communicate with everyone else. It has end-to-end encryption (although at the moment it only works in one client, but it's coming along).

[1] https://matrix.org/

Agreed, it's like signal on steroids.

If you have kids that you communicate with, stickers and iMessage apps like bitmoji are a big deal, and Whatsapp doesn’t have them.

Whatsapp really seems to be missing the boat with tweens and teens - that’s cant be good for their future.

I spend lots of time with my teenage nephew—it’s all iMessage, Snapchat, Discord, GroupMe (surprisingly, because I’m old enough to use that!), and sometimes even Instagram DMs. Granted, he lives in the US, so that might change things.