[garciasn]

1. If you're not based in a country where SMS was included free, it was/is advantageous to use something delivered over the Internet, rather than carrier.

2. It allowed for sharing multimedia better.

3. It closed the divide between Android and iOS, giving a singular experience across the two systems.

4. Prior to RCS, it allowed for typing notifications, high resolution media, read receipts, etc whereas SMS did not offer these options.

5. There really isn't any additional benefit for most of these now; but, folks are already ingrained into the ecosystem.

[NoGravitas]

This phone not having RCS is not great. In the US it's the closest thing to a real messaging app that you can just use with random people without pre-arranging to install Signal or something.

[a5c11]

But it's Meta, yuck! Better use Signal or Telegram.

[Hugsbox]

Right, but if absolutely everybody you know is on WhatsApp and have no desire to move to Signal or Telegram, chances are you're going to end up using WhatsApp regardless of your feelings toward Meta.