A technology being published does not mean that it is available, especially for technologies that require uptake by the general public. And, well, PGP and GPG have reputations for such awful usability that they _might as well not exist_ as far as the general public is concerned. As another comment here mentions, just look at its uptake numbers! There are probalby more people qualified to do open-head neurosurgery than there are people who are qualified to use PGP. It's no more "available" than the C64 demoscene, orbital rocketry, or quantum physics. Signal and Apple and Google aren't being credited for developing the core tech, they're being credited for refining it until they can wrap it up in a package that's so user-friendly and low-friction that _every single person on the planet_ can use it.
The only "qualification" to use PGP is to read the manual.
You claim that _every single person on the planet_ can use the corporate apps, which implies that every person is able and willing to buy a device which can run them. Not everyone can buy a smartphone, and not everyone is willing to buy one for various reasons, but anyone with access to ANY computer can run PGP.
As long as computers exist, we'll have PGP. The other messengers rely on centralized infrastructure which could go down by accident or by hostile actors. Even Signal, which I love and recommend - and was not mentioned by the post I was replying to earlier (why?) - could easily end its services one day.
The wrong thinking I see in your post and the earlier one is this:
1. Lots of smart people create encryption schemes
2. Phil Zimmerman invents and releases PGP, giving the power of encryption to everyone with a computer.
3. Years pass...
4. In the smartphone era, Google, Facebook, and Apple incorporate encryption into their apps, in order to entice users to use their platforms and take their friends with them.
5. You and that other guy are all like, "Praise be to Google and Meta and Apple for giving us the power of encryption!"
