Liam says the Green Shame is REAL!

Hey Geezers,

As someone who went to high school post-iPhone I can confirm green bubble "bullying" does exist. For those cliques that care, iPhones are a status symbol. In some peoples' eyes you will be seen as "a poor", if you don't send blue bubbles. You will be left out of group chats, solely for the reason of not wanting the group "polluted" by your green bubbles. Lots of people, including my own sister, openly bought iPhones so they would appear as blue bubbles. Luckily, I was not in groups that cared.

To be fair SMS/MMS was particularly bad and unpredictable on Android back then and mobile data was much more limited. The root of this problem isn't Apple being evil or Google being incompetent, but Americans' refusal to abandon SMS. Apple wanted to do more than SMS offered and saw a fantastic way to market their platform. Google wanted to copy their success, but got bored after a few years. The problem with both platforms is SMS was still dragged along to communicate with the other. 

I have managed to convert most of my friends to Telegram over the years, but I doubt most of America will ever switch away from SMS, iMessage, or whatever a big platform makes/buys next.