For completeness' sake: even power users cannot really do with their devices as they please, if they don't happen to be kernel hackers with a few months' worth of time to spare.

If google was trying to hit some sweet spot (I'm not willing to give them the benefit of the doubt here any longer) then they would not spout such obviously wrong BS to scare users into submission. Conversations and telegram both put the work into doing push notifications The Right Way (TM) so scaring users about this is stupid at best.