RCS has been around since the early 2010s and absolutely nobody used it until Google did. You had to download carrier specific apps, which then only worked with other people who downloaded their carrier specific apps, because nobody bothered to write unofficial ones. Carriers have been shutting down their RCS servers for years because their customers didn’t care. Google is the only reason anyone uses RCS, if it weren’t for them we’d still be on SMS/MMS.
15 years and it’s still problematic? Sounds like something that just needs to be let go.
Stop pushing this garbage that’s tied to hardware/sim/phone number on us. What value is that for the end user, seriously? Why would an end user today want a messenger that’s tied to a phone number?
Fully-functional, cross-platform, network-based, open-source instant messaging has been available (even on mobile) since 2009, maybe earlier.
What I always ask about RCS: who benefits today from a messaging system that’s hard-bound to a phone number?
The value for the end user, the way Apple and Google do it, is that it works on every phone. It was always intended to be the next generation of MMS messaging. RCS, as designed, never had companies like Google run their own servers, but Google had to because many carriers never bothered to set up RCS in the first place.
Who benefits today? Everyone sharing chat groups with iMessage people. I avoid iMessage but millions of people are stuck with text messaging or ostracised for breaking group messaging (because SMS and MMS are terrible).
Furthermore, RCS isn’t just text messaging. The standard also contains digital payments and video calls. It’s an open (to carriers) alternative to iMessage that has features ready to go that Signal doesn’t even implement yet.
Communication is literally what phone numbers are for.
You don’t know what you’re talking about. Samsung, Verizon, ATT, and who knows who else all had their own proprietary RCS apps that were not compatible to any others.
How can you say what Google has done is “encouraging RCS”? They literally monopolised it.
RCS has been around since the early 2010s and absolutely nobody used it until Google did. You had to download carrier specific apps, which then only worked with other people who downloaded their carrier specific apps, because nobody bothered to write unofficial ones. Carriers have been shutting down their RCS servers for years because their customers didn’t care. Google is the only reason anyone uses RCS, if it weren’t for them we’d still be on SMS/MMS.
15 years and it’s still problematic? Sounds like something that just needs to be let go.
Stop pushing this garbage that’s tied to hardware/sim/phone number on us. What value is that for the end user, seriously? Why would an end user today want a messenger that’s tied to a phone number?
Fully-functional, cross-platform, network-based, open-source instant messaging has been available (even on mobile) since 2009, maybe earlier.
What I always ask about RCS: who benefits today from a messaging system that’s hard-bound to a phone number?
The value for the end user, the way Apple and Google do it, is that it works on every phone. It was always intended to be the next generation of MMS messaging. RCS, as designed, never had companies like Google run their own servers, but Google had to because many carriers never bothered to set up RCS in the first place.
Who benefits today? Everyone sharing chat groups with iMessage people. I avoid iMessage but millions of people are stuck with text messaging or ostracised for breaking group messaging (because SMS and MMS are terrible).
Furthermore, RCS isn’t just text messaging. The standard also contains digital payments and video calls. It’s an open (to carriers) alternative to iMessage that has features ready to go that Signal doesn’t even implement yet.
Communication is literally what phone numbers are for.
What??
The RCS API on Android is only available to Google Messages and whomever Google allows (like Samsung Messages when they existed). This is the reality.
If the RCS API was truly open there would be an explosion of FOSS alternatives to Google’s spyware.
You don’t know what you’re talking about. Samsung, Verizon, ATT, and who knows who else all had their own proprietary RCS apps that were not compatible to any others.