Earlier quoted context omitted.
Blame the telcos for the relative poor quality of text message multimedia (via MMS). The telcos specify the size limits of MMS messages. iMessage has much higher limits in most cases, so iPhone has to use reduce the quality of the pics/videos to reach the lower size limits for sending to non-iMessage recipients. For the telcos, why would they upgrade their size limits for MMS - it's just a cost centre for them. They…
It's not the telcos. My family can't send my Android phone a text because Apple intercepts it and sends it as an iMessage instead.
Also, your family has total control on how to send it, they should just long-press the send button and choose to send as SMS.