This is all well and good, but for me, it's not SMS. No one uses SMS. It's iMessage. And iMessage is absolutely more secure than Telegram, and probably even Whatsapp, so all these arguments fall flat for me.
Personally, I hate iMessage because, while I have an iPhone, everything else is Linux. But that's not really an argument I can make to literally every single person I ever interact with. :/
iMessage is indeed more secure than Telegram. Dunno vs. WhatsApp, but unlike WhatsApp it has a central message archive (and as of a few weeks ago, you can end-to-end encrypt that, too, I think).
It pained me not to be able to recommend iMessage but because it's not supported on Android, Windows, or Linux, you fall back to SMS (for Android) or nothing at all (for Linux/Windows) and then it's far worse than Telegram.
Personally, I hate iMessage because, while I have an iPhone, everything else is Linux. But that's not really an argument I can make to literally every single person I ever interact with. :/