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> The whole green bubble thing with Android SMS on iPhone is a problem, but the solution is to get everyone to use a different chat app. Apple will never give this up.

There are so many competitors in this space, you really can't claim it's for lack of trying.

Defaults are powerful, especially for Apple users.

It's not just that defaults are powerful, it's the network effects. When WhatsApp was purchased by Facebook, there was a strong movement in Europe to move to other messengers. But it never really got off the ground because everyone is on WhatsApp. Trying to live without WhatsApp in some European countries only leads to social isolation (a bit like trying to live without iMessage in the US).

> Google could be leading that charge and providing a world beating chat app that works across all phones and all desktop devices.

The tried, many times. Google Talk, Hangouts, YouTube Chat, Allo, Google Chat and probably others that I missed.

RCS may be their most successful attempt yet in the US by hijacking SMS which I guess is fairly popular.

> but the solution is to get everyone to use a different chat app

And how do you do that?

Google could just leverage the very popular Gmail app and start piping people into chat from there. They don't even try. Their Hangouts/Meet app on iPhone is a withered husk.