I know I’ll get downvotes for this but I switched from Android to iPhone after years and years of using Android while knowing I wouldn’t be able to use iMessage features texting Android users. While knowing I couldn’t and would likely never be easily able to sideload apps, heck even after they had already taken the headphone jack away. I literally do not care about any of that for the purpose for which I use my phone. I just want it to work, without having to endlessly tweak and customize and modify. I like that it does what it says it does out of the box and does so smoothly and reliably.
I like that it integrates well with other apple products. I have exactly 3 contacts I use the native messaging app for. The rest have all been communicating with me through Messenger or Telegram or WhatsApp for years anyway — I’d MUCH rather see governments prioritize making those services talk to each other so I could uninstall two of them but I don’t ever see anyone talking about that even though Apple haters love to bash Apple over iMessage - while ignoring that the RCS protocol Google uses has proprietary bullshit built on top of it meaning that even if Apple adopted the protocol itself the interaction between iPhone and android messages would still be messy.
As I said I know I’ll get downvotes for this but I also know I’m far from alone and this is exactly why Apple has the power it does: it gives its users what they want, even if non-Apple users don’t see it that way. I see so many arguments against Apple that fail to take that into account.