USA here. Only reason I have WhatsApp is to stay in touch with friends in Europe and South America. Not a single one of my American friends or relatives uses it.
My friend group uses google the same way apple users use imessage. The implementation has changed many times over the years (google chat, sms integration, hangouts chat, whatever), but it's always basically been the same thing and it's usable from any device. That's my main complaint about ~~signal ~~ and telegram: if I'm at home, forget using my stupid tiny phone, lemme do it from my PC that I'm probably on anyway.
edit: tried to strike out signal, but it's ignoring the formatting I guess.
That's good to know. I think when I tried it before, I ran into issues signing into multiple devices at once. Chances are, I just got the apps confused in memory though. Thanks!