You’re essentially arguing that it’s easier for a user to find a third party app in the App Store, install it, create an account in the app, and start messaging than it is to start messaging with the pre-installed first party app.

I don’t find that persuasive.

It works in the rest of the world. Not hyperbole. In literally the rest of the world manages to do that. Only in the US does half of the user base let itself get bullied by the other half, instead of just using a service that works equally well on both. And while it’s technically “create an account in the app”, no normie user feels that an account is being created. Works with phone number, just enter a verification code, done.