Probably a lot. I was very annoyed myself, though it made android pretty similar to the situation on iOS where you can’t replace the default messaging app anyway.

It’s an area where I think we need a bunch of stuff:

1. Antitrust regulation to force companies to use open standards and allow customization
2. Folks like the Signal Foundation should get over themselves and run their project like a real open source project, where others can fork/modify/run both the server side and client side.

There’s so much anti-competitive bullshit regarding #1 from all sides, from carriers to Apple to Google to device manufacturers.

They had a good blog post about why - their take was that SMS is dying and the replacement was a moving target that was hard to support for reasons I’m forgetting. I agree it hurt them tremendously though.

“Then he must be a noble beast indeed,” said Aragorn; “and it grieves me more than many tidings that might seem worse to learn that Sauron levies such tribute. It was not so when last I was in that land.”

“Nor is it now, I will swear,” said Boromir. “It is a lie that comes from the Enemy. I know the Horse Freaks of Rohan; true and valiant, our allies, dwelling still in the lands that we gave them long ago.”

It’s like watching my parents try to meme and I’m here for it.