In The Derelict Project series, I submerged a message deep under the surface of the stories, basically to make it so that I didn't have to (in fact, pretty much couldn't) discuss politics in them. Civilization has moved to a state where nearly all interactions are contractual and voluntary. However, because this is the common condition of much of mankind, the philosophical topics and arguments that lead to such a state need not actually be discussed in the stories.
It was a sidestep, but a deliberate one. In a world with so many stories extolling particular political messages, I locked myself into a fictional universe where such messages would be simply out of place. All I have to do is avoid accidentally referring to governments, taxes, etc. This is a minor difficulty that basic revision can deal with.
Now, you might expect me to denounce the use of messaging in fiction here, but that's where you'd be mistaken. Such a position is unrealistic, unconvincing, and presents no useful information for an author who wants to be message-heavy.
Fiction is a great way to get a message across if that's what you want to do. You wrap your ideals or fears in a story, and hope people learn the lesson you want them to. However, if the purpose of your story is to promote a particular message (rather than actively avoid such messages), then there are some things you need to do, and to do these things right is probably a more difficult task than simply outlining your position in a nonfiction book.
What does messaging in fiction need to be effective?
Messaging in fiction must not simply preach to the choir. The message must be carefully and thoroughly considered and applied, or it will make the world appear to be inconsistent to anyone familiar with the common arguments against it.
In fact, many nonfiction writers get away with avoiding to handle even good-faith objections to their arguments, because the nonfiction book can be presented as an educational introduction to any particular school of thought, with objections to be handled at some nebulous future date.
In fiction, if you present a controversial position without addressing counterarguments, you risk breaking readers out of their suspension of disbelief, which has serious consequences for their acceptance of the rest of the plot, let alone your message!
This is so difficult to do that even extremely popular books with extremely front-and-center messages often only do a barely passable job at it, or they find their work being interpreted in ways they didn't anticipate or desire!
Consider, for instance, the character Rorschach from Watchmen. From what Alan Moore has said, he designed that character to be unsympathetic to the average reader, but something about him spoke to readers in a way that Moore didn't anticipate.
Consider an author like Ayn Rand, who indeed includes characters and plot points that illustrate the common counterarguments to her positions, yet they tend toward the cartoonish, at best! And despite that, she is one of the biggest, best-selling message-heavy (even message-central!) authors out there!
The point I'm trying to make here is that, if you want to include your favored message (whatever it is, I'm not judging here) in your fiction, you should try to do an even better job of handling counterarguments than her!
Otherwise, your reader might end up like this:
If you're not willing to put in that hard work, you might be better off hammering on your message less and simply trying to weave small threads of it into your story where they fit. You need not write about a threat to a perfect utopia, or an idealistic revolution in a perfect dystopia. Shades of gray are your friend.
Build a bond with your reader, and maybe they'll follow you when you go off on a little tangent, as long as you keep them relatively focused and applicable, and throw a few thoughts about how someone in opposition might see your tangent.
As for me, I'm going to keep writing apolitical fiction because it's fun. But you are free to figure out how much message you want to include.
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Does some apolitical mystery/sci-fi sound good to you? Check out my book Missed Contact, in which a blue-collar group of salvagers are hired to find a group of missing scientists. Will the dangers that took the scientists also overcome the Misevelin Salvage team? Find out in my fun little mystery with a hard sci-fi wrapper.
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