Google says iMessage is too powerful
Don't forget carriers got us here by charging PER text.I remember when iMessage came out, and for some people it was a way to get away from getting charged for texts. Especially international! Things have changed so much it's hard to see the original inspiration in 200x.As for interop, in 2020s it looks like platforms are the style du jour, things like XMPP didn't quite cut it. I'd be happy to see that change, but for google to lay this claim sounds lazy to me.