For those who can avoid using iMessage for meaningful discussion, that's why we have Signal/Telegram/etc. Also it takes that extra effort to piece together evidence if you have to search someone else's phone for my data.

Wouldn't the data stores of these apps be included in iCloud backups too?

Thank you! I didn’t actually realize it was possible for apps to exclude their data from backup.

Here it is from their own docs: https://support.signal.org/hc/en-us/articles/360007062012-Ne...

> An iTunes or iCloud backup does not contain any of your message history. Only new messages, not conversation history, will be displayed.