I've been on the BB ecosystem and usually was between the major carriers. If I recall correctly, some carriers charged a small $10 premium for the Blackberry Da

I've been on the BB ecosystem and usually was between the major carriers. If I recall correctly, some carriers charged a small $10 premium for the Blackberry Data plan versus the normal data plan -- for others it was the same. BBM if you recall was the cool, exclusive phone (think early Kim Kardashian and Paris Hilton), but then iPhone came along and had cool apps. They were Blackberry exclusive until they started losing share to Android and iPhone. By the time it was too late, you could use BBM on iPhone and Android. To me, iMessage is the same, (maybe even less than BBM was more like a chatroom too) but has reigned supreme for longer.