Yes. Global company creates marketing campaign to call out other global company in which they clearly present ALL of the facts and don't gloss over any of the problems or faults of their own. Good job Google. Mission accomplished.

Quantity isn't more important that quality and homekit covers largely everything people actually want. That's like saying the Nintendo e-shop is the best because it has so many games while ignoring that most of them are complete dogshit.

Google will probably abandon home like they have with so many other products and Amazon already wishes they didn't have Alexa because it hasn't netted them anywhere close to the return they hoped for as it relates to purchases from their website.

It's pretty obvious that nuance and context aren't very important to you so there's not much point in continuing beyond this point.

You believing it doesn't make it true. Even if there's some truth to it (there is) it is possible for both things to be true. That being apple wants to convert android users, which honestly if this feature alone converts you then you deserve to have your money taken, as well as them not wanting to pass messages through Google owned servers for privacy reasons.

The fact you think no devices support homekit is complete nonsense. There are a shit ton of options that support it. The biggest gap in coverage are cameras and even there are a handful of options. Matter/thread benefits everyone. Apple included.

Do you know how they included encryption in RCS? By making it go through Google servers. Whether you believe apple or not on their stance on security/privacy they have a better track record than Google does in that department. Is it a marketing tool for Apple? Absolutely. Is it still better than trusting Google to do the right thing? In my opinion, yes.

Not even the majority of carriers want to dick with RCS which is where support really should start.

Apple has shown they are willing to work towards a common standard (matter/thread being recent examples) so them not passing messages through Google servers in this case seems to be more an alignment with their public statements about privacy, even if you ignore the obvious marketing around it.