[alwayslikethis]

Unfortunately, RCS on Android requires google apps, so this isn't really a solution to anyone who doesn't want to be tracked by Google everywhere they go.

I'm still a little confused as to what problem RCS is supposed to solve. It is just as centralized as any other chat app, and is a bit more invasive (often requiring device attestation). Is it really worth all this hassle just to not have to install, let's say, Signal?

[kelnos]

Defaults matter. While I've gotten some of my friends and family members to install and use Signal, I still have more chats via SMS/MMS (and more recently RCS, since Apple finally started supporting it) than I do on all other messaging apps combined.

[diego_sandoval]

Where (and why) is that?

I'm from Chile, and the last time I sent an SMS (or heard of anyone sending an SMS) must have been like 12 years ago.

Ever since then, everyone has used Whatsapp or Telegram instead.

[lxgr]

Probably the US. SMS, MMS, and now RCS are still ubiquitous there – and only there, as far as I know.

[hashworks]

If you decline to use WhatsApp you need to use SMS for a lot of contacts in Germany. Or RCS since the latest iOS update.

[sincerely]

in NA, SMS is still dominant. Eu+Sa+india use whatsapp, china/japan have their own apps

[theshackleford]

This is likely to differ greatly by demographic. I don’t know literally anyone who uses SMS/MMS. The only SMS message I’ve received in years are automated services/spam.

[jeroenhd]

That's not necessarily true. For full compatibility you'd need a pre-installed app on Android, but vendors like Samsung and Sony and OnePlus can build their own RCS messengers for those devices should they choose to. Same with custom ROM developers for an open source implementation.

For non-ROM developers, it depends on what RCS activation technique your carrier uses.

RCS isn't a Google spec, or an Apple spec, or even an IETF/IEEE/ISO spec. It's part of the core mobile networking specifications. It was created by the people who designed the MMS spec after 4G switched mobile networks to everything-over-IP. Unfortunately, the 4G spec didn't require RCS, it was just an optional side feature, so carriers never bothered with it.

RCS solves the problem that most of the US uses iMessage or SMS/MMS, but the SMS/MMS part of that equation is absolutely dreadful. File size limits are stuck in the mid 2000s, messages are split over multiple SMS packets if you send more than one sentence, the entire thing is unencrypted. Sometimes people like to send photos to each other and the 150KiB or so file size limit on MMS isn't enough for that anymore.

As for why not have people install Signal: why would they, because everyone is already using something else? I live in a country where everyone uses chat apps and all but one of my contacts are on WhatsApp. In other places, that'll be Telegram, and in some North American countries, that'll be iMessage/MMS, the texting app that comes with the phone for sending texts.

[nottorp]

> For non-ROM developers, it depends on what RCS activation technique your carrier uses.

There's your problem right there. You may not remember being charged per message, but trust me, it was a thing.

The carriers would love to go back to 2 cents per sms, 5 per rcs "rich message" and 10 per encrypted "rich message".

[WhyNotHugo]

Being charged per message, per minute is pretty common all over the world.

And a lot of carriers still don’t support international romain or will charge a shit ton.

Usually, the cheapest approach is to just buy a cheap sim when you visit another country, but that doesn’t play well if you rely on SMS.

[madeofpalk]

I don't believe this FUD. I think overal the market has moved from from charging for messages. I fully believe carriers would love to rip off everyone as much as they can, but I think carriers know customers would just use facebook messenger if they tried charging per-message.

[WhyNotHugo]

Carriers charging too much is exactly why WhatsApp became so popular in so many countries. It was optimised for very little data usage, so was dramatically cheaper than SMS.

[nottorp]

Don't forget you could also send photos with it, which is more than what can be said about MMS.

Funny enough, I think I was charged once for a MMS in the past 5 years. No idea how I managed to do it, but it seems to still exist and still be charged per message even on my unlimited everything else plan.

[madeofpalk]

Exactly. That happened like 10-15 years ago. I think the market has evolved and consumers now would not accept this from carriers now.

[gruez]

>but vendors like Samsung and Sony and OnePlus can build their own RCS messengers for those devices should they choose to.

Yes, but AFAIK they all caved and switched to google messages instead

>Same with custom ROM developers for an open source implementation.

Does one exists?

[lxgr]

No, it's worse than a standard centralized chat app: It's ostensibly federated, with network operators running the servers.

But practically, only Google actually knows how to do that (the specifications are absurdly complicated!), and so they do it for all operators as a service.

It's a fig leaf of an open protocol and service even for telco industry standards.

[WhyNotHugo]

RCS seems to be mainly designed as a successor for SMS.

For interpersonal communication, SMS is dead in the majority of the world, so a successor is entirely irrelevant.

For for the 1 or 2 countries where people still send SMS, RCS seems like a major improvement with a bunch of feature that have been available on other platforms for many years now.

[paulryanrogers]

Now that Signal cannot be the SMS / RCS app, yes that's too much hassle. Network effects are too powerful.

[oblio]

Oh, what's up with Signal?

[paulryanrogers]

They used to be SMS compatible. But now are just a solo like most other chat app.

https://signal.org/blog/sms-removal-android/

[paulryanrogers]

^silo

[wkat4242]

It also requires a Google account as far as I know. I have Google apps but no account signed in. And when I tap on the connect RCS option it asks me to sign in.

Anyway iMessage (and iOS for that matter) is irrelevant where I live so I don't expect this to change anything. I'm not going to be on RCS. The main apps here are WhatsApp and Telegram (the latter more for groups)

[o11c]

I have a very minimal Android phone with no Google account ever added/used on the device, and it says my chats with other Android users are using RCS ...

The phone number is associated in the other direction though (way back when Google didn't be evil and GMail required invites, I dared to trust them with it, I forget for what).

[lxgr]

It shouldn't. The only reason Google Messages sometimes asks for an account is to support remote access via messages.google.com without scanning a QR code, as far as I know.

While it's largely openness/federation theater (Google runs most servers in the background, either on behalf of or instead of the mobile networks), they at least got that part right (as in conforming to the specification, not as in doing the long-term right thing for users) and exclusively use the phone number as an identifier.

[wkat4242]

Ah ok strange. It is a Samsung phone though. Samsung has been forcing a Google login in more and more places unfortunately. I think they made some deal with them about the AI features. Just like they now promote OneDrive instead of their own cloud. Maybe that's why or I didn't understand the popup.

I don't really want it if I can't access my messages online anyway. The whole reason I love telegram and WhatsApp is that I don't need my phone when I'm on the computer (which is 90% of the time). But a Google account is out of the question.

Right now I even bridge WhatsApp and Telegram through matrix because I don't trust those either, though I don't think I trust any company less than Google. But I don't know if you can do that for RCS.

But tbh I'm not looking for any other chat app unless it's federated and I can run my own server. RCS is technically federated but limited to a group of big companies so that's pretty useless to me.

I think I'll just block it just like I do SMS. I turn off all the notifications for the relevant apps.

[lxgr]

No chance for bridging RCS to Matrix, as far as I know. That’s what I find so concerning about it: It’s theoretically more open, but practically much more locked down than both SMS and proprietary alternatives.

[wkat4242]

Yeah me too. It doesn't help at all to take control away from big tech (really, meta or google is the same difference). And it loops in the phone carriers. You know, those guys that charged us 1 euro for 180 bytes just because they could get away with it. I never ever want those guys in the middle again, just as a raw bit pipe only.

The only thing that's open is the standard, but in practice you need to be on google's radar to be connected. So it's just as closed to us as everything else.

[slartibardfast0]

this is so true for networks that don't implement RCS servers, not even Android - iOS interop present!

one thing i would like to see happen is deprecating SMS message with Labels rather than numbers, phishing has got far far too common in my jurisdiction RCS + some sort of DNS validation like atproto of sender would go a long long way

[lxgr]

> RCS + some sort of DNS validation like atproto of sender would go a long long way

Now this would be a messaging protocol I could get behind. Phone networks could even provide a phone number registry for people that insist on using that for whatever reason.

But there's absolutely no chance it'll happen – neither the telecommunications industry nor Google have any interest in making federation for others than "trusted partners" possible.

SMS is already a goldmine for carriers (thanks to the widespread use of SMS for OTPs and authentication), so why not make the next logical step and replace email for as many remaining B2C use cases as possible and collect some rent there as well?

[RataNova]

Your point about Google's central role is spot-on, and without an open, Google-independent implementation, RCS does remain problematic for anyone avoiding that ecosystem.

[scarface_74]

Yes. Not everyone is going to install Signal (which isn’t end to end encrypted btw), everyone has a cell phone that can support either iMessage/RCS/MMS/SMS and when you send a message to someone else’s number, you have graceful (sic) degradation.

[rockskon]

Could you elaborate on your claim that Signal is not end-to-end encrypted?

[khimaros]

Signal is absolutely end-to-end encrypted

[EasyMark]

Lol signal is end to end encrypted. what are you even talking about? are you thinking telegram or something?