I have used Telegram, iMessage, WhatsApp and Signal extensively in multiplatform settings. Only iMessage and Telegram have good overall UX (with the latter far more featureful and smooth than the former). Sure all "work" to some degree but the overall poor UX shows. It's more about polish issues and death with a thousand cuts, rather than one specific problem, although in the case of Signal, the out of place "Story" bullshit is a turn-off.

You can disable stories in the settings. But what's BS to you is a big deal in the Indonesian and other markets. Your UX is not everyone's.

You can disable stories. The UX still is shit. Again, death by a thousand cuts. As for Indonesia or whatever, I am sure people Stories increases engagement that boosts Signal executives morale thinking they are more relevant and can stick it to Zuck. I just don’t want it in a serious messaging app that hopes to be used in place of iMessage or Google Messages and since we are debating opinions, I take Apple’s judgement on design over aggregate clicks from Indonesians.

Do you have some basis for what you say? It's just a rant at this point; it hardly has a specific criticism and fabricates things about people you probably don't know. Whatever you think, that doesn't make it so.

Stories was a specific criticism; was it not?

I understand that our opinions don't agree, so I cite Apple's market research and design decision to bolster my case.

But I will stop there. Maybe just peddle your BS to ask folks to shut up elsewhere. Who are you even to know whom I know or not?