It is so strange here how many people encourage innovation, but then wants standards for everything. iMessage is far from new and everyone has seen it slowly grow in popularity over the years, but because everyone else was so lazy with messaging platforms or in Google's case axed everything and not looking long term now it is suddenly oh my way (RCS) or the highway. Apple's messaging there is the fallback of sms which is interoperability, no other messaging platform has basically been crapped on for having proprietary messaging and certainly having a fall back.
If I use FB messenger I cannot talk to my friend using signal nor can my signal account talk to my iMessage friend or my RCS friend. We use various messengers because of the feature differences not always because I can't send grandma a clear picture of my dog. Snapchat gained popularity because at the time it was unique, signal because of privacy, what's app because of feature set, if there is a standard then any new company would have to wait to release a new feature until it works with all the rest. Also how does everyone expect certain features to work correctly? for example, sending money through apple pay using iMessage how will that work if there is interoperability? guess what the whole blue bubbles thing will still be here! if there is interoperability just because i can send a friend a full res pic doesn't mean i can send apple cash, or play a little game via iMessage because they don't have that app. We would still need distinguishers to let us know visually what can and cant be done.
For those thinking of a system similar to the mail app where you can sign into various email accounts in one app, that just spells having a backdoor and I hope that you love being able to send grandma crispy photos more than the rude awakening a messaging backdoor would provide..
