Kinda true in Europe though. Don't know anyone who uses iMessage, it's pretty much irrelevant. I know the situation in the US is quite different, but ultimately they don't regulate for the US market.
It's annoying as fuck when I message my wife a video of our kids, it looks like dog shit on her iPhone. I have to instead send it on Whatsapp or signal. I hate apple
That's because you're using SMS, that's not the fault of the messaging app. Using a third party messaging app is the correct way to go, it's encrypted, supports group chats, and bigger messages.
Specification may be not controlled by Google, but the single available client implementation is controlled by Google and almost all carriers are delegating managing their RCS servers to Google.
While XMPP or Matrix server you can host even on your LAN network between two computers.
With Apple controlling the majority of the lucrative American teenage user base (after all, if all you've ever used is iPhone, you'll probably stick to iPhone in the future; this is what Adobe did, what Microsoft did, and what Google came in to take over, and both succeeded) and an ever growing percentage elsewhere, Apple implementing RCS would immediately sway control over the protocol back the other way.
My phone doesn't come with XMPP or Matrix preinstalled. If I'm going to be talking to people, it'll be through an app they already have (WhatsApp, in my case, maybe Telegram or Signal) or we'll fall back to SMS if I barely have any signal. In a group of 30 tech enthusiasts, I've seen proposals to switch to Matrix succeed in convincing 5 of them to install a new app. With how inferior XMPP and Matrix apps still are today, I don't think I'll have much better luck with normal people.
I want either Matrix or XMPP to succeed, but at the way things are progressing, I just don't see it happening.
Apple can implement RCS, but what then?
Currently people not using Apple approved device in US can be marginalized. After RCS people not using Apple or Google approved device are going to be marginalized. And they both have wide requirements in order to be approved, recently Google started requiring Play Integrity check. So no RCS after you get rid of YouTube app for example.
This is the same discussion all over about defaults like if this was LibreOffice vs MS Office debate.
I don't think it's ever happened to me that anyone told me that it was inconvenient for them that I didn't have iMessage, compared to pretty much weekly exclamations of "But why can't you just use WhatsApp like everyone else!?"
Apple would still feel pressure to add interoperability if all other big players do. iMessage would have a competitive disadvantage if it's the only one where users are unable to message the rest of the world.
Yes. Still, it would be harder to not give a f if others walled gardens open up, and iMessage get disadvantaged by that wall.
It's as if iPhones were only able to make calls to other iPhones. Whereas all other devices where able to make calls to any device from any other vendor.