I've had a hard time understanding it as well. It seems like I can express so much more and operate so much faster on a computer, but these days a lot of people

I've had a hard time understanding it as well. It seems like I can express so much more and operate so much faster on a computer, but these days a lot of people prefer to just stick with their phone for everything. FWIW, if you use Google Fi as your carrier, you can send and receive SMS messages as part of Google Hangouts on web (including in gmail). That's what I do. But I certainly still prefer a phone-independent one like FB messenger or real Google Hangouts. I think also a lot of people who might care are thoroughly in the iOS/macOS ecosystem and are ok with a messaging system (iMessage) that works across devices for most friends but degrades to phone-only (SMS) when communicating with friends using Android. I've even had one or two times where I use Messages on Mac (which doesn't work on Android and never will) to talk with an iOS friend since he didn't want to use SMS.