I think its only a US android user issue. Here in Australia there are more android users so everyone uses 3rd party apps that work everywhere.

There are probably clusters of Apple users there as well, usually found in higher echelons of society. That's the market Apple targets anyways.

I mean, that happens to iPhone users too. That's the SMS fallback for iMessage reactions.

I wish I had an option to turn off reactions, or at least turn off notifications for reactions. When my sister gets a few minutes to review the family group chat she goes through and "loves" and "likes" and "laughs at" almost every message. My phone pings for every single one of them.