The inability of so many people to understand the issue is just astounding. Samsung, a few years ago, removed "contact" level, custom message tones. In contacts, we used to be able to specify a specific "ringtone" AND specify a "Message tone" too. This "message tone" is what is played when that specific contact messages you regardless of text thread.
Imagine you have multiple group message threads as well as individual text threads going. This allows you to know instantly, by sound, who just sent a text to a group message thread. Here's a pretty simple scenario from just this month: I have a long standing group message thread with a lot of family members: parents, sister, nephew, niece, and a few cousins. They all live in Oregon so was communicating a lot about the wildfire situation which was encroaching their home town. My parents were driving back to Oregon from Oklahoma during all this. Many of us were waiting on safety updates from the parents in the group message. So, whenever my mom would send an update on their progress and safety trying to find an open route back to the Salem area, I'd hear specific "message tone" for her contact & I'd check it quickly. Otherwise, it was usually just air pollution updates or sky pics from the others which are not urgent to read.
What so many people don't seem to grasp is that setting a custom message tone to the entire group thread is pointless here. I didn't need to know when "somebody" sent a text to the thread, I only really needed to know when my parents did. They are nearing their 70s, so we try to keep responsive to welfare and their asks.
