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Google changes its messaging strategy again: Goodbye to Allo, double down on RCS

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Re: Google changes its messaging strategy again: Goodbye to Allo, double down on RCS

#71

Post by majewsky »

bb88 wrote: post #48
eloisant wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm a bit tired of people pulling out this comic each time a new standard appears. Whatsapp, Telegram, FB, iMessages are NOT standards. They're closed systems controlled by a single company. XMPP is a standard from the days of ICQ, AIM, MSN, etc. Unfortunately it failed. SMS is a standard for mobile phone text communications. It's too limited now. RCS is the evolution of SMS. I don't think RCS is a redundant standard…

> Whatsapp, Telegram, FB, iMessages are NOT standards. They're closed systems controlled by a single company. That's what the term "Defacto Standard" is for.

Not really. A de-facto standard is when multiple implementations from multiple parties agree on some behavior without it being described in a formal specification. Whatsapp does not have multiple implementations from multiple parties.

Re: Google changes its messaging strategy again: Goodbye to Allo, double down on RCS

#72

Post by majewsky »

dannyw wrote: post #32
enitihas wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Google+ was heavily marketed though.

And it didn’t work. What makes you think it’ll work this time?

Chrome was also heavily marketed, and that worked just fine.

Re: Google changes its messaging strategy again: Goodbye to Allo, double down on RCS

#73

Post by majewsky »

geeostation wrote: post #27
praneshp wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The verge puff piece about RCS specifically called out that messages are _not_ end to end encrypted.

without end to end encryption. this is doa

Except for 99% of users who sadly don't give a shit about E2E.

Re: Google changes its messaging strategy again: Goodbye to Allo, double down on RCS

#74

Post by dingaling »

eloisant wrote: post #63
icebraining wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I can send SMSs internationally, why not RCS? And you can send & receive SMSs on a computer. The real problem, in my opinion, is cost; Hangouts is free, SMSs aren't. And it seems RCS is designed to be billed per-unit, following the model of the latter.

In France all carriers give unlimited free SMS. Is it not the case in other countries?

Not on pay-as-you-go in the UK, where you still pay for every message. 3p each for my plan which doesn't seem much but I easily send over 100 e-mails and IMs every day.

Re: Google changes its messaging strategy again: Goodbye to Allo, double down on RCS

#75

Post by Rjevski »

RCS is shit. It’s a good idea in theory, but in practice it’s a crappy, over-engineered clone of iMessage or WhatsApp without any of the good parts like end to end encryption or spam protections.

It relies on the carriers to keep it functional and we all know this won’t end well... given the robocall and SMS spam situation do you really think RCS will be any different? But at least robocalls and SMS spam cant carry anything besides plain text, while RCS could contain HTML and a lot more “active” stuff which no doubt will exploit some bugs in the phone’s implementation to install malware.

Re: Google changes its messaging strategy again: Goodbye to Allo, double down on RCS

#76

Post by fauigerzigerk »

Every time there is a choice to make for Google on messaging they predictably make the wrong one.

How on earth can you control the most widely used OS on the planet and not be able to capture some market share without handing more power to operators?

Re: Google changes its messaging strategy again: Goodbye to Allo, double down on RCS

#77

Post by tscs37 »

eigenvector wrote: post #61
eloisant wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In France we get to keep our phone number when we switch operators. Travel is an issue yes, but I think it's worth it to have a truly decentralized system.

At a conceptual level, it does have many advantages. For one thing, it's just part of your phone, you never have to install anything. You don't have to market it to anyone, it just automagically rolls out through the world as people buy new devices and carriers adopt it. But I'm concerned that the intransigence of carriers, especially those that operate in non-competitive environments, will get in the way of rolling…

RCS should be backwards compatible, so if the carrier is blocking it, the users simply see a normal SMS message.

Re: Google changes its messaging strategy again: Goodbye to Allo, double down on RCS

#78

Post by tscs37 »

sdrothrock wrote: post #15
Corrado wrote: post #2

I think RCS is a great idea and Google should be pushing it. In fact, I would argue that few other companies could make it happen in a way that Google can. RCS opens up a much larger world than a simple "chat" client does.

> RCS opens up a much larger world than a simple "chat" client does. How so? It's carrier-specific and thus limited to phones on carriers that support it. What about international messaging, etc.? One of the huge benefits of Hangouts is that I can chat with anyone anywhere, phone or computer, America or Japan.

If RCS is not supported, the metadata is stripped and it arrives as a normal SMS at the destination. It doesn't require support from the carrier AFAICT.

Re: Google changes its messaging strategy again: Goodbye to Allo, double down on RCS

#79

Post by stephenr »

bb88 wrote: post #31
polskibus wrote: post #16

Long time ago, Google chat supported XMPP. Later on that support has been cut off. How do they expect people to trust this statement: "We don’t believe in taking the approach that Apple does. We are fundamentally an open ecosystem. We believe in working with partners. We believe in working with our OEMs to be able to deliver a great experience,” ?

Because people want party parrots. And there isn't a standard to send party parrots through XMPP. /s Okay, a little snarky, but it makes a point. Chat programs have a lot of proprietary features that won't translate through XMPP.

> Chat programs have a lot of proprietary features that won't translate through XMPP.

Most chat networks are still built around xmpp - they’re just not federated and likely using private extensions.

Re: Google changes its messaging strategy again: Goodbye to Allo, double down on RCS

#80

Post by rrdharan »

fauigerzigerk wrote: post #76

Every time there is a choice to make for Google on messaging they predictably make the wrong one. How on earth can you control the most widely used OS on the planet and not be able to capture some market share without handing more power to operators?

The (not-so-)secret is, they don’t control it.
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