I have a feeling Uber might even have worked to get this article made in the first place. Maybe I'm just very cynical, I don't know. But it happens all the time so...
Perhaps because users don't care what app they use to send messages with? Text messages is like this universal thing we do. Nobody cares which phone their friend uses when calling each other, as long as the other person has a phone too it's all good. Messages should be like decentralized signals, and "apps" should be the radios of those signals. Nobody is going to "win" messages. People are sending messages with whatsapp, sms, facebook, snapchat........