The problem with these messaging apps is that they’re all disincentivized to make something that works well for everyone. They want their messaging app to be the only one, so they can get all the...
The problem with these messaging apps is that they’re all disincentivized to make something that works well for everyone. They want their messaging app to be the only one, so they can get all the users (and therefore data on them for ads).
The only exception is Apple, but they want to make iMessage a thing, so they’re not going to work to make other system better either. They only support RCS because they can read the writing on the wall and realized the EU was going to come after them and wanted to head off some of their arguments.
RCS is a bit of a mess though. It’s a patchwork of who can and can’t use it because it isn’t just an app, it requires carrier level infrastructure and support. And it’s not a marketable feature, so why would they invest in doing it quickly? Verizon isn’t going to make an ad that says, “Join Verizon! Our RCS support is top notch!”
Smaller carriers and MVNOs likely have to wait for the carrier they use for their network to provide support. So it has taken even longer.
Ugh, RCS. I'm the one person in my group who doesn't use it, because it's apparently implemented in the Google messages app and not at the Android level. I don't use that app, so I don't get RCS....
Ugh, RCS.
I'm the one person in my group who doesn't use it, because it's apparently implemented in the Google messages app and not at the Android level. I don't use that app, so I don't get RCS. This is fine.
But when I moved last year, I left my phone in the moving truck and had to go buy a temporary replacement, the cheapest phone the AT&T store would sell me at the time. Which, of course, came with the Google messages app, as Android phones do. It silently autoregistered itself as RCS capable, and caused mass chaos in my friend group's MMS chat, since I was the last member to do so and that allowed the other phones to switch over.
I did not realize this had happened, and also it seems to take nontrivial time to unregister from RCS after clicking the button to do so (I assume caching somewhere), and also some of the other people in that chat had buggy RCS implementations, so there were a couple of weeks of the chat spontaneously splitting and some people not receiving messages from other people, even if I wasn't either of the people involved. (And, memorably, one person not being able to see their own messages.)
It was a mess and it soured me on RCS as a whole. It could have been great.
Yeah Google still control RCS in a big way, it is kinda far from the open universal standard that it was advertised as. iMessage latches on to your phone number much the same way on iPhone and it...
Yeah Google still control RCS in a big way, it is kinda far from the open universal standard that it was advertised as. iMessage latches on to your phone number much the same way on iPhone and it causes headaches for people who switch to Android from iPhone. Apple have a public page where you can go and put your phone number in to deregister you but the design of the page hasn't been updated since the iPhone 7 days at least.
I don't really agree with the point of RCS being a first-class passenger on Android for years though. I used only Android phones (mainly Samsung) during the inception and roll-out of RCS in the...
I don't really agree with the point of RCS being a first-class passenger on Android for years though. I used only Android phones (mainly Samsung) during the inception and roll-out of RCS in the United States and I recall RCS being kind of a mess. It depended entirely on your carrier supporting it so it was a guessing game if your messages would be sent as SMS or as RCS. It also requires you to use Google's own messaging app. This isn't really a problem nowadays for the average user as I think everyone just ships Google Messages but I remember it being an annoyance for some of my friends who'd just use their OEM's built-in app or a third party app with customizations.
TIL that RCS is only supported by Google Messages. Seems like a potential problem. I would've hoped other clients were available, but I already avoid SMS when possible.
TIL that RCS is only supported by Google Messages. Seems like a potential problem. I would've hoped other clients were available, but I already avoid SMS when possible.
Yup. This also means that it's not possible to use RCS on most (any?) non-stock Android OSes, like Graphene or CalyxOS or iodeOS. It really sucks! The spec is "open", but so much of the planning...
Yup. This also means that it's not possible to use RCS on most (any?) non-stock Android OSes, like Graphene or CalyxOS or iodeOS. It really sucks! The spec is "open", but so much of the planning and design happened in closed-door conversations with Apple and Google engineers that there's no meaningful way for anyone to build an RCS client based on that spec.
I use RCS on Graphene. It's not as graceful as the stock Pixel experience, but it can be made to work. But yes, it does require using Google's app and giving it a lot of permissions that most...
I use RCS on Graphene. It's not as graceful as the stock Pixel experience, but it can be made to work. But yes, it does require using Google's app and giving it a lot of permissions that most Graphene users aren't interested in.
As I wrote that, I did realize that Graphene's sandboxed play services might actually let you use RCS haha. Well, good to know, thanks for the correction!
As I wrote that, I did realize that Graphene's sandboxed play services might actually let you use RCS haha. Well, good to know, thanks for the correction!
There's a huge thread on Graphene's forum about the RCS debacle. Mint is my carrier and I, along with a handful of others, was having ongoing issues with it running correctly. I recently dropped...
There's a huge thread on Graphene's forum about the RCS debacle. Mint is my carrier and I, along with a handful of others, was having ongoing issues with it running correctly. I recently dropped my Pixel and killed the screen, so I had to get a new phone. Being back on stock Android in a way is kinda nice because RCS just works now.
I haven't really kept up much with RCS and I remembered this being the case over 5 years ago and it unfortunately still is the case today. As @JMX mentioned, everyone wants only their messaging...
I haven't really kept up much with RCS and I remembered this being the case over 5 years ago and it unfortunately still is the case today. As @JMX mentioned, everyone wants only their messaging app to exist and in the current state, Google basically controls RCS as if it were its own. If I'm not mistaken, most RCS messages still flow through Google's own Jibe backend. So even if you wanted to escape Google, you can't if you use RCS.
Personally I find that RCS on iOS is very annoying. I have precisely one person whom I regularly exchange text messages with, my husband, and about 5-10% of the time RCS messages fail to send....
Personally I find that RCS on iOS is very annoying. I have precisely one person whom I regularly exchange text messages with, my husband, and about 5-10% of the time RCS messages fail to send. I'll get a notification that it failed to send and I'll manually resend it and it will work. Why is Google and the carriers trying to work with a system that is so unreliable? You can't even say that this is a problem with carrier interoperability because we are both on the same carrier.
I'd much prefer that everyone moved to open systems rather than ones that are controlled by giant corporations who exist primarily to extract money from you. We have Signal, we have Matrix, and we've had XMPP for decades now.
Those RCS issues are unique to iOS. I regularly go back and forth between an iPhone and a Pixel (I switch every couple of months because I get bored and like playing with another phone) and I've...
Those RCS issues are unique to iOS. I regularly go back and forth between an iPhone and a Pixel (I switch every couple of months because I get bored and like playing with another phone) and I've only ever had RCS issues with people who have iPhones. Apple technically allows RCS on their platform, but it's implemented VERY poorly. They don't really care though because they want everyone to have the blue bubbles.
It’s pointless to blame the issues on Apple. My point is not that Apple does a bad job, but the entire system fails us because there is literally zero alternatives because RCS is a closed system...
It’s pointless to blame the issues on Apple. My point is not that Apple does a bad job, but the entire system fails us because there is literally zero alternatives because RCS is a closed system that is pay-to-play. RCS may not be a monolith like WhatsApp or WeChat or whatever but it’s still essentially a cartel forcing us into a less than ideal situation.
That's largely because of carriers dragging their feet. RCS is supposed to be carrier mediated, in the same way your phone calls, SMS/MMS, and cellular data is. The reason it's "a cartel" (Google)...
but it’s still essentially a cartel forcing us into a less than ideal situation.
That's largely because of carriers dragging their feet. RCS is supposed to be carrier mediated, in the same way your phone calls, SMS/MMS, and cellular data is. The reason it's "a cartel" (Google) is because carriers were doing so little (to nothing) to implement it, that Google took it out of their hands (for the time being?) to centralize/deploy it on their servers/services. By all means, RCS was not supposed to be a Google service, it was supposed to be a carrier level service.
I don't know if Google ever wants or plans to give up RCS to carriers now that it's responsible for it, I would hope so. But in my eyes, the monopolization of RCS is entirely to blame on the carriers.
I would be interested in knowing how much of carriers not pushing for RCS development and deployment comes from their disinterest in it given the market split between iOS and non-iOS users. After all, if half their market is happily moving along with iMessage, they may not see the value in pursuing development and deployment of RCS for the other half of their market when SMS/MMS "does good enough". But that's a different conversation, I think.
This is fascinating to learn! I’ve basically not bothered to look into RCS for a handful of reasons, but if it’s (supposed to be) a carrier system, does that imply each country will do things...
RCS is supposed to be carrier mediated, in the same way your phone calls, SMS/MMS, and cellular data is.
This is fascinating to learn! I’ve basically not bothered to look into RCS for a handful of reasons, but if it’s (supposed to be) a carrier system, does that imply each country will do things their own way? Does RCS even exist — or is it intended to exist — outside of the US?
RCS is intended to exist internationally, in the same way SMS/MMS exist, as a service provided by that individual's carrier. RCS is a spec, like HTTP, not a proprietary service. I (American)...
RCS is intended to exist internationally, in the same way SMS/MMS exist, as a service provided by that individual's carrier. RCS is a spec, like HTTP, not a proprietary service. I (American) regular RCS text my dad, who lives in Europe full time.
I hate that we (the US) are one of the few countries that didn't collectively agree on a feature-rich alternative we all use instead, like whatsapp, kakaotalk, or line
I hate that we (the US) are one of the few countries that didn't collectively agree on a feature-rich alternative we all use instead, like whatsapp, kakaotalk, or line
You don't need a Meta account to use Whatsapp and having recently installed it myself on brand new hardware (rather than transferring data/settings from my old phone), it won't even ask you to...
You don't need a Meta account to use Whatsapp and having recently installed it myself on brand new hardware (rather than transferring data/settings from my old phone), it won't even ask you to create one, let alone force the issue.
I'm sure there are other reasons people might choose not to use it, of course.
Well, you create a WhatsApp account, and that's enough for Meta to link your account there to its massive surveillance apparatus. (Not to mention WhatsApp is a resource hog.) Living in a place...
Well, you create a WhatsApp account, and that's enough for Meta to link your account there to its massive surveillance apparatus. (Not to mention WhatsApp is a resource hog.)
Living in a place where WhatsApp is almost mandatory, I wish we were tied to another app, even iMessage/RCS. (The dream would be Signal, but having to download yet another app is a major barrier.)
Whatapp accounts are phone numbers. They don't know my name (other than what I chose to enter) or address or even have an email for me. They can't use that number to contact me, I guess they might...
Whatapp accounts are phone numbers. They don't know my name (other than what I chose to enter) or address or even have an email for me. They can't use that number to contact me, I guess they might be able to see if I enter it into certain forms on the internet, but that's likely approaching some serious data protection laws.
Anyway, even if what you say is accurate, and I don't believe it is for me because where I live GDPR is a thing, I don't care. Really could not care less. This "massive surveillance apparatus" has no noticable impact on my life. Meta have almost 20 years of my "data" at this point and what's my Facebook feed full of ads for? Tobacco and alcohol. I haven't smoked or drunk for longer than they've been harvesting information about me!
99% of my messaging is done via Whatsapp. I might prefer Signal but I don't care enough to try, especially because I will never get enough other people to use it. Also Signal's desktop app was pretty bad last time I used it. My phone doesn't seem to require significant resources to run Whatsapp, at least not enough for me to notice.
No, you haven't given it to them. Facebook, to have that information, and be in compliance with the GDPR, would have to have been given that information by another source. So now we guess: how...
Whatapp accounts are phone numbers. They don't know my name (other than what I chose to enter) or address or even have an email for me
No, you haven't given it to them. Facebook, to have that information, and be in compliance with the GDPR, would have to have been given that information by another source.
So now we guess: how many of the people that will ever contact you via Whatsapp, will both fill in additional information about you in their contacts app (name, job, relation to them, etc), and allow the Facebook, Messenger, or Whatsapp apps access to their contacts? Because my guess is above zero, and that's all Facebook needs to match number to name to spouse to address, and so on
What Whatsapp uses may not be what everyone considers an "account", sure. But bet your ass feeds Facebook more information than just "This phone number is in use", even if that's all the information you submit
Just to reinforce your point, I have WhatsApp because that’s how my family does group messages, but from day one I’ve never allowed WhatsApp to access my contacts. And because I’ve never allowed...
Just to reinforce your point, I have WhatsApp because that’s how my family does group messages, but from day one I’ve never allowed WhatsApp to access my contacts. And because I’ve never allowed access, I’ve never been able to create a group chat — WhatsApp just straight up will not give you that functionality if you don’t give it contacts permissions on iOS.
This means that, by definition, every group chat you’ve been added to has at least one person who has given unlimited contacts access to WhatsApp.
On a related note, I’ve been waiting so long for Apple to add an option to “share only these contacts” with an app, in the same way they already have granular permissions for photos (share nothing/share selected/share everything) and location (nothing/general location/precise, and share just once/for an hour/forever)
On a related note, I’ve been waiting so long for Apple to add an option to “share only these contacts” with an app, in the same way they already have granular permissions for photos (share nothing/share selected/share everything) and location (nothing/general location/precise, and share just once/for an hour/forever)
Ah, fantastic! Thank you! Looks like it’s been in place now for nearly a year and a half, but I haven’t heard people talking about it so I assumed it was still not yet a thing!
Ah, fantastic! Thank you! Looks like it’s been in place now for nearly a year and a half, but I haven’t heard people talking about it so I assumed it was still not yet a thing!
I’m not going to bother explaining why your privacy is important but I will say that I have to assume that you’re living somewhere in Europe, because American privacy laws are essentially...
I’m not going to bother explaining why your privacy is important but I will say that I have to assume that you’re living somewhere in Europe, because American privacy laws are essentially nonexistent, especially outside of the state of California.
You're overly underestimating Meta's surveillance apparatus. They use WhatsApp data to feed your profile and “improve” friend suggestions and ads in Instagram and Facebook since 2016. Their words:
You're overly underestimating Meta's surveillance apparatus. They use WhatsApp data to feed your profile and “improve” friend suggestions and ads in Instagram and Facebook since 2016. Their words:
“[B]y coordinating more with Facebook, we’ll be able to do things like track basic metrics about how often people use our services and better fight spam on WhatsApp,” WhatsApp writes in a blog on the change today.
“Facebook can offer better friend suggestions and show you more relevant ads if you have an account with them. For example, you might see an ad from a company you already work with, rather than one from someone you’ve never heard of.”
While not wanting to use Whatsapp due to its ownership is extremely valid, you don't use a Meta account of any kind for Whatsapp. It uses your phone number and is not integrated with Meta's other...
While not wanting to use Whatsapp due to its ownership is extremely valid, you don't use a Meta account of any kind for Whatsapp. It uses your phone number and is not integrated with Meta's other apps to my knowledge.
Having come from a generation where our first non-verbal mobile communication was by pager, my perspective is a little different. Certainly there are problems with these protocols, but it's also...
Having come from a generation where our first non-verbal mobile communication was by pager, my perspective is a little different. Certainly there are problems with these protocols, but it's also an amazing ability to be connected. My favorite thing about RCS is that when I send my wife abda few family members pictures and video, they are not crushed to potato quality due to bandwidth limitations of MMS.
RCS is part of the convergence of low end decentralized (SMS) messaging with high end, centralized chat platforms but it clearly lies on the low side. So characterizing it as "bad chat program" misses the "A+ point to point texting platform".
To be fair, I missed out on the "group chat" mentality. (Also I am a bit of a hermit). My biggest practical text groups are 6 people, beyond that I think it's untenable. I am in one larger group chat that I'm only peripherally involved in. Somehow it has held together with 30+ members, but I finally had to mute it because I don't need my phone blowing up at work (or any time really) because someone got a dog or a house and 30 people hearted the message.
The problem with these messaging apps is that they’re all disincentivized to make something that works well for everyone. They want their messaging app to be the only one, so they can get all the users (and therefore data on them for ads).
The only exception is Apple, but they want to make iMessage a thing, so they’re not going to work to make other system better either. They only support RCS because they can read the writing on the wall and realized the EU was going to come after them and wanted to head off some of their arguments.
RCS is a bit of a mess though. It’s a patchwork of who can and can’t use it because it isn’t just an app, it requires carrier level infrastructure and support. And it’s not a marketable feature, so why would they invest in doing it quickly? Verizon isn’t going to make an ad that says, “Join Verizon! Our RCS support is top notch!”
Smaller carriers and MVNOs likely have to wait for the carrier they use for their network to provide support. So it has taken even longer.
Maybe we just need a new standard?
Ugh, RCS.
I'm the one person in my group who doesn't use it, because it's apparently implemented in the Google messages app and not at the Android level. I don't use that app, so I don't get RCS. This is fine.
But when I moved last year, I left my phone in the moving truck and had to go buy a temporary replacement, the cheapest phone the AT&T store would sell me at the time. Which, of course, came with the Google messages app, as Android phones do. It silently autoregistered itself as RCS capable, and caused mass chaos in my friend group's MMS chat, since I was the last member to do so and that allowed the other phones to switch over.
I did not realize this had happened, and also it seems to take nontrivial time to unregister from RCS after clicking the button to do so (I assume caching somewhere), and also some of the other people in that chat had buggy RCS implementations, so there were a couple of weeks of the chat spontaneously splitting and some people not receiving messages from other people, even if I wasn't either of the people involved. (And, memorably, one person not being able to see their own messages.)
It was a mess and it soured me on RCS as a whole. It could have been great.
Yeah Google still control RCS in a big way, it is kinda far from the open universal standard that it was advertised as. iMessage latches on to your phone number much the same way on iPhone and it causes headaches for people who switch to Android from iPhone. Apple have a public page where you can go and put your phone number in to deregister you but the design of the page hasn't been updated since the iPhone 7 days at least.
I don't really agree with the point of RCS being a first-class passenger on Android for years though. I used only Android phones (mainly Samsung) during the inception and roll-out of RCS in the United States and I recall RCS being kind of a mess. It depended entirely on your carrier supporting it so it was a guessing game if your messages would be sent as SMS or as RCS. It also requires you to use Google's own messaging app. This isn't really a problem nowadays for the average user as I think everyone just ships Google Messages but I remember it being an annoyance for some of my friends who'd just use their OEM's built-in app or a third party app with customizations.
TIL that RCS is only supported by Google Messages. Seems like a potential problem. I would've hoped other clients were available, but I already avoid SMS when possible.
Yup. This also means that it's not possible to use RCS on most (any?) non-stock Android OSes, like Graphene or CalyxOS or iodeOS. It really sucks! The spec is "open", but so much of the planning and design happened in closed-door conversations with Apple and Google engineers that there's no meaningful way for anyone to build an RCS client based on that spec.
I use RCS on Graphene. It's not as graceful as the stock Pixel experience, but it can be made to work. But yes, it does require using Google's app and giving it a lot of permissions that most Graphene users aren't interested in.
As I wrote that, I did realize that Graphene's sandboxed play services might actually let you use RCS haha. Well, good to know, thanks for the correction!
There's a huge thread on Graphene's forum about the RCS debacle. Mint is my carrier and I, along with a handful of others, was having ongoing issues with it running correctly. I recently dropped my Pixel and killed the screen, so I had to get a new phone. Being back on stock Android in a way is kinda nice because RCS just works now.
I haven't really kept up much with RCS and I remembered this being the case over 5 years ago and it unfortunately still is the case today. As @JMX mentioned, everyone wants only their messaging app to exist and in the current state, Google basically controls RCS as if it were its own. If I'm not mistaken, most RCS messages still flow through Google's own Jibe backend. So even if you wanted to escape Google, you can't if you use RCS.
And Google Voice doesn't support RCS at all and probably never will. It's one of their more neglected products sadly.
Personally I find that RCS on iOS is very annoying. I have precisely one person whom I regularly exchange text messages with, my husband, and about 5-10% of the time RCS messages fail to send. I'll get a notification that it failed to send and I'll manually resend it and it will work. Why is Google and the carriers trying to work with a system that is so unreliable? You can't even say that this is a problem with carrier interoperability because we are both on the same carrier.
I'd much prefer that everyone moved to open systems rather than ones that are controlled by giant corporations who exist primarily to extract money from you. We have Signal, we have Matrix, and we've had XMPP for decades now.
Those RCS issues are unique to iOS. I regularly go back and forth between an iPhone and a Pixel (I switch every couple of months because I get bored and like playing with another phone) and I've only ever had RCS issues with people who have iPhones. Apple technically allows RCS on their platform, but it's implemented VERY poorly. They don't really care though because they want everyone to have the blue bubbles.
It’s pointless to blame the issues on Apple. My point is not that Apple does a bad job, but the entire system fails us because there is literally zero alternatives because RCS is a closed system that is pay-to-play. RCS may not be a monolith like WhatsApp or WeChat or whatever but it’s still essentially a cartel forcing us into a less than ideal situation.
That's largely because of carriers dragging their feet. RCS is supposed to be carrier mediated, in the same way your phone calls, SMS/MMS, and cellular data is. The reason it's "a cartel" (Google) is because carriers were doing so little (to nothing) to implement it, that Google took it out of their hands (for the time being?) to centralize/deploy it on their servers/services. By all means, RCS was not supposed to be a Google service, it was supposed to be a carrier level service.
I don't know if Google ever wants or plans to give up RCS to carriers now that it's responsible for it, I would hope so. But in my eyes, the monopolization of RCS is entirely to blame on the carriers.
I would be interested in knowing how much of carriers not pushing for RCS development and deployment comes from their disinterest in it given the market split between iOS and non-iOS users. After all, if half their market is happily moving along with iMessage, they may not see the value in pursuing development and deployment of RCS for the other half of their market when SMS/MMS "does good enough". But that's a different conversation, I think.
This is fascinating to learn! I’ve basically not bothered to look into RCS for a handful of reasons, but if it’s (supposed to be) a carrier system, does that imply each country will do things their own way? Does RCS even exist — or is it intended to exist — outside of the US?
Yes, it does! The link above (that started this conversation) is from a guy in Brazil (me! :)
RCS is intended to exist internationally, in the same way SMS/MMS exist, as a service provided by that individual's carrier. RCS is a spec, like HTTP, not a proprietary service. I (American) regular RCS text my dad, who lives in Europe full time.
I hate that we (the US) are one of the few countries that didn't collectively agree on a feature-rich alternative we all use instead, like whatsapp, kakaotalk, or line
Honestly I find it preferable to being forced into creating an account with Meta.
You don't need a Meta account to use Whatsapp and having recently installed it myself on brand new hardware (rather than transferring data/settings from my old phone), it won't even ask you to create one, let alone force the issue.
I'm sure there are other reasons people might choose not to use it, of course.
Well, you create a WhatsApp account, and that's enough for Meta to link your account there to its massive surveillance apparatus. (Not to mention WhatsApp is a resource hog.)
Living in a place where WhatsApp is almost mandatory, I wish we were tied to another app, even iMessage/RCS. (The dream would be Signal, but having to download yet another app is a major barrier.)
Whatapp accounts are phone numbers. They don't know my name (other than what I chose to enter) or address or even have an email for me. They can't use that number to contact me, I guess they might be able to see if I enter it into certain forms on the internet, but that's likely approaching some serious data protection laws.
Anyway, even if what you say is accurate, and I don't believe it is for me because where I live GDPR is a thing, I don't care. Really could not care less. This "massive surveillance apparatus" has no noticable impact on my life. Meta have almost 20 years of my "data" at this point and what's my Facebook feed full of ads for? Tobacco and alcohol. I haven't smoked or drunk for longer than they've been harvesting information about me!
99% of my messaging is done via Whatsapp. I might prefer Signal but I don't care enough to try, especially because I will never get enough other people to use it. Also Signal's desktop app was pretty bad last time I used it. My phone doesn't seem to require significant resources to run Whatsapp, at least not enough for me to notice.
No, you haven't given it to them. Facebook, to have that information, and be in compliance with the GDPR, would have to have been given that information by another source.
So now we guess: how many of the people that will ever contact you via Whatsapp, will both fill in additional information about you in their contacts app (name, job, relation to them, etc), and allow the Facebook, Messenger, or Whatsapp apps access to their contacts? Because my guess is above zero, and that's all Facebook needs to match number to name to spouse to address, and so on
What Whatsapp uses may not be what everyone considers an "account", sure. But bet your ass feeds Facebook more information than just "This phone number is in use", even if that's all the information you submit
Just to reinforce your point, I have WhatsApp because that’s how my family does group messages, but from day one I’ve never allowed WhatsApp to access my contacts. And because I’ve never allowed access, I’ve never been able to create a group chat — WhatsApp just straight up will not give you that functionality if you don’t give it contacts permissions on iOS.
This means that, by definition, every group chat you’ve been added to has at least one person who has given unlimited contacts access to WhatsApp.
On a related note, I’ve been waiting so long for Apple to add an option to “share only these contacts” with an app, in the same way they already have granular permissions for photos (share nothing/share selected/share everything) and location (nothing/general location/precise, and share just once/for an hour/forever)
iOS does that since version 18.
Ah, fantastic! Thank you! Looks like it’s been in place now for nearly a year and a half, but I haven’t heard people talking about it so I assumed it was still not yet a thing!
I’m not going to bother explaining why your privacy is important but I will say that I have to assume that you’re living somewhere in Europe, because American privacy laws are essentially nonexistent, especially outside of the state of California.
You're overly underestimating Meta's surveillance apparatus. They use WhatsApp data to feed your profile and “improve” friend suggestions and ads in Instagram and Facebook since 2016. Their words:
While not wanting to use Whatsapp due to its ownership is extremely valid, you don't use a Meta account of any kind for Whatsapp. It uses your phone number and is not integrated with Meta's other apps to my knowledge.
People decided to use iMessage and iPhones in large enough quantities they didn't have to. And it sucked for the rest of us.
Having come from a generation where our first non-verbal mobile communication was by pager, my perspective is a little different. Certainly there are problems with these protocols, but it's also an amazing ability to be connected. My favorite thing about RCS is that when I send my wife abda few family members pictures and video, they are not crushed to potato quality due to bandwidth limitations of MMS.
RCS is part of the convergence of low end decentralized (SMS) messaging with high end, centralized chat platforms but it clearly lies on the low side. So characterizing it as "bad chat program" misses the "A+ point to point texting platform".
To be fair, I missed out on the "group chat" mentality. (Also I am a bit of a hermit). My biggest practical text groups are 6 people, beyond that I think it's untenable. I am in one larger group chat that I'm only peripherally involved in. Somehow it has held together with 30+ members, but I finally had to mute it because I don't need my phone blowing up at work (or any time really) because someone got a dog or a house and 30 people hearted the message.
I fully agree.