This is fundamentally the wrong analysis. The idea that people care about being "cool" to get blue bubbles or whatever is not what this is about.

This is about the fact that messaging between an iOS device and Android just sucks at present if the iOS user is on iMessage. I won't hash over all the details, but Google's site trying to convince iMessage to support RCS (which Apple has said they will do in 2024) gives a good overview of the problems: https://www.android.com/get-the-message/

I'm not a teenager, but I certainly care. I'm the only Android user in my family, and I'm sick of getting pixelated videos from my parents. I'm sick of the "Bob liked an image" messages. I'm sick of random messages not showing up in group chats. And while it's not a huge everyday concern, it sucks that there is no secure encryption when I message my family, and worse, all of the group chats that I'm part of result in nobody, even all the other iOS users, getting encryption in those chats.