That’s a culture-thing. I’m a member of two forums that are still pretty active. One views dead thread revivals as amusing, the other almost literally has a celebration in-thread when it happens as all the members with older posts in it come piling in. Heck, the second forum has a thread so active that people literally ask for, and get, recaps for the last X amount of time for it.

Unless you care about privacy (signal), why even have a second messaging app? I have the phone to make calls and send texts. The default shit works well on iphone and android.