But Apple isn't doing any of that.

They invented a ton of new messaging features that SMS didn't support, and the phone has to make it clear which conversations support those and which don't. So they had blue bubbles replace existing green ones.

Ostracization and bullying is what teens do for a thousand different reasons over a thousand different things. Yes Apple is responsible for creating a walled garden of messaging, just like WhatsApp has over most of the rest of the world, and basically every other rich messaging app is trying to do. It's not like Google Allo was trying to be any less walled garden.

But to say Apple is responsible for ostracization and bullying is to take the notion of responsibility too far. Is Supreme responsible for kids who bully other kids because they aren't wearing Supreme...?

Or they could just open iMessage to android...

I agree with you but it's not damaging to Apple (much the opposite) so they'll continue to do it.

That is why I'm specifically advocating for us calling them out on it - that makes it damaging to them.

Here’s a crazy idea. Why not fix the problem at the source? Address the entitled behaviour of teenagers.

If you want to fix teenage rebellion and cliquishness I applaud your efforts. I certainly personally suffered from bullying when I was a teenager over my clothes and haircut and pretty much every other facet of my person so if you can come up with a way for no one to ever endure it again I'd celebrate your achievement. Humanity hasn't managed to impart real empathy on teenagers in thousands of years of existence - we have accounts of rebellious teens from Rome so I assume it's not an easy fix.

So, maybe instead of focusing on bullying we can just focus on punishing companies that profit from bullying.

> So, maybe instead of focusing on bullying we can just focus on punishing companies that profit from bullying.

This is an extreme take. Yes bullying is is a consequence of society. Don’t be lazy and blame someone else for your societies ills. Especially when the solution is simple: encouraging the use of an alternative. No. RCS isn’t the alternative. WhatsApp, Line, Telegram, Signal, Snapchat, TikTok, Discord etc, etc, etc are all mature, are used widely by the rest of the world (where SMS is practically free to use as well). The easier solution, and much cheaper for everyone is to change behaviour. It’s extremely naïve to think that changing the colour of a bubble will stop this sort of bullying.

I don't think adding RCS support is going to instantly solve all the world's ills but Apple is pretty explicit about their reasoning for not supporting RCS: to create a specific and exclusive messenging experience on their phone. This exclusive experience is causing just another thing kids can be assholes about - they are currently and will forever continue to be assholes about a lot of stuff but this particular one is one artificially created by Apple to benefit their profitability. I'm sure in their internal meetings they like to think that exclusivity will only really affect adults and that we're mature enough not to bully each other (which, we mostly are, since the behavior we most bully as adults is bullying itself) but this exclusivity also affects teens that are far less mature. Personally I'd also love it if everyone moved off SMS/RCS in general since it's billed as an extreme luxury by carriers but I don't know if we can make that happen when Messenger comes pre-installed on iOS devices.

I don't assume that fixing a bubble color will fix all bullying but I do stand by your interpretation that I find that changing the color of a bubble will stop all this sort of bullying.

What is more difficult to fix?

Humanity (specifically, teens) or

Apple ( the largest technology company by revenue (totaling US$365.8 billion in 2021) and, as of June 2022, is the world's biggest company by market capitalization[0] )

[0] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apple_Inc.

Love that you angryly included the source, like the internet is a debate club. You and all the other pitchfork handlers are assuming Apple actually needs to be fixed for this entirely-made-up and self-imposed issue. They don't. It really is that clear.

You mean the behaviour that ancient civilizations already used to complain about? I'd argue changing one UI color would be an easier first step.