Google Is Taking Charge of the RCS Rollout

* the spec is very very complex, and most parts are optional, so no two phones/carriers/manufacturers/OS versions will ever agree on anything but the basic minimal set of features.

* there is no specification for end-to-end encryption, and even if there were, it would be optional (as noted above)

* RCS is reliant on carriers which is idiotic given that they have time and time again demonstrated that they cannot be trusted (SIM theft, wholesale sale of location data, etc). It is not a simple set of packets moving over the internet. It could have been. But it is not!

* Carriers CAN and likely WILL charge for it, because they can and because sadly (as noted above) RCS is visible to them as something more than an encrypted stream of data

* Phone number-as-identity is so stupid, even apple admitted it by allowing @icloud.com accounts to work with imessage. People move countries, they change numbers. Phone number is a stupid identity! Oh, and SIM theft exists. Repeat after me: phone number is not an identity!

Google fucked this up MAJORLY so many times, it is not even funny. Hangouts could have been this, if not for internal politics at google. Another google-created service could have been it too. Before google released their 50th messaging app (or is Google up to 60 yet?), people might have listened and adopted what they offered. At this point everyone is too burned by Google releasing new messaging apps and then sunsetting them year later.

In reality, RCS is a terrible non-solution to the actual problem of rich secure messaging between people with guaranteed delivery and typing indication. It is instead a money-grab for carriers and a data-grab for the NSA. Nice and easy to spy on a protocol with no encryption.

I'm from the US but I've lived abroad the last four years. I'm still surprised so many people "back home" continue to use SMS texting. Everyone I know around the world uses WhatsApp. Literally, in every single continent I know and chat with people on WhatsApp.

Only Americans still use SMS from what I've seen. I just don't get it.

I'm guessing the only thing that comes close to texting in terms of marketshare is iMessage. And that's simply because it is on every iOS device AND enabled by default.

Exactly. Carriers will see this as another revenue opportunity with almost zero marginal cost. They'll pounce on charging a premium for it. They want the glory days of per-minute per-text charges where you had to buy large pre-paid packages or risk high per-message charges.

Google has failed themselves repeatedly at their chat offerings. I personally believe it is due simply to Google's incentives: You don't get a promotion for maintaining hangouts.

Wave, GChat/Talk, Hangouts, Allo. All failed by Google neglect. Why should RCS be any better. It isn't even dependent on Google's neglect. It is dependent on our already highly unreliable North American carriers.

I need to agree on this one too.

I just recently found out that my Samsung phone has video calling but, surprise surprise, carrier charges for that extra!

But of course any other video app over internet (such as Google Duo) works with no additional charges because mobile internet is basically free! (where free means 10$ for two lines sharing 40 GB of data monthly)