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Comment by thomasahle | Hacker News Reader

> I don’t think that’s a US vs Europe thing

I had never encountered the "blue vs green" bubble problem until moving to the US.

It's partly because the US has a higher rate of iPhones (through subsidized phone plans) and partly because the US hung onto SMS much longer than other countries.

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Sure, I won’t deny that there’s a blue/green bubble issue in the same way that people have issues with any friction point. This is the same as if one set of friends are on WhatsApp and another set are on telegram etc… and having to deal with either switching between apps or dealing with reduced capabilities.

However the initial person I was replying to was talking about judgements regarding the device itself and as a whole, not just messaging friction

To add my own lived experience, the whole blue / green text thing is absolutely a cultural label throughout continental Europe. As a 20-something who has recently lived in France + Denmark, you do seem like a bit of a pariah without an iPhone

Really? In my experience, the main audience for iPhones, consists of three groups: high earners, fans and children. The first group buys for status, the second group buys for convenience, and the third group because the repairs are cheaper and easier (fewer models). Most people I know despise the Apple model of always trying to squeeze some more money out of you.

Have you ever thought that it might be more of a function of people you know and your own outlook than objective reality?

Does 33% of the population of the EU and 50% of the population of the US really fit in your tiny bubbles.

You realize Android phones are running an operating systems whose entire purpose of being is to collect your data and continuously make money off of you?

Not sure I understand what you are trying to say. Yes, no and yes, but that doesn't change anything.

Except that maybe your bubble is not aligned to objective reality?

Yours is?

Well let’s go back to your statements

> The first group buys for status,

With 50% of the population in the US having iPhones and 33% in the EU, where is the “status from having one”?

Besides, in the US, the difference between buying an iPhone on a 24 month interest free payment plan and an Android phone on the same payment plan is minimum. Even at minimum wage that’s less than 5 hours of work. But with todays worker shortage, even fast food workers are making $15/hour. This gets back to how is it a symbol of “status” when you have the same phone as a teenager flipping burgers?

> the second group buys for convenience,

You mean people buy stuff that makes their life more convenient? Isn’t this like saying “water is wet”?

> and the third group because the repairs are cheaper and easier (fewer models)

Repairs are easier because Apple has retail stores all over the country and actually have good customer service.

As a 30-something European it never happened to me, not even once.

Maybe we should not assume it's always a country thing. It's peer pressure behaviour, and your immediate group of peers might or might not care.

Same thing for me, first time I heard about it was on HN IIRC.

> This is the same as if one set of friends are on WhatsApp and another set are on telegram etc… and having to deal with either switching between apps or dealing with reduced capabilities.

It's not really the same, since if a group is using WhatsApp and you want to join, but don't have WhatsApp, you can simply install it. The same with all other messaging platforms.

With iMessage you can join over text/MMS, but it will make the experience so much worse for everyone that most people (from my experience) will simply not allow you to join.

There's a reason this is a major cause of dread for socially vulnerable teenagers https://www.wsj.com/articles/why-apples-imessage-is-winning-... but it's not that different for adults.

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