Mastodawn

I feel a little stupid for cheering on Google when they shamed iOS for not having RCS support. While I think Apple's main impetus for not initially supporting RCS was due to their desire for kids to be bullied for having green bubbles, phones using RCS gives Google a de facto messaging monopoly in the US and I'm questioning if Apple really should have adopted it. Most carriers use Google's Jibe services for RCS messaging instead of building out their own infrastructure, and Google doesn't provide any third-party API access to RCS on Android.

I mean, it feels obvious in retrospect, but Google really was just pushing RCS to create a messaging monopoly after Hangouts and Allo utterly failed. By all accounts, RCS is shaping up to be another version of WhatsApp, just with Google in the driver's seat instead of Facebook, and what's worse is that it's baked into your phone instead of being something you have to download.

#Google #Android #RCS #Apple

Show thread

Kai Feb 15

@Rusty While RCS is nice and everything, I kinda hate that Google pretty much runs the show.

They made it so that their Messages app is the only one that supports it, because ALL their other chat apps sucked and didn't catch on (Google Chat, anyone?) so now they're like "Oh hey, here's RCS. But only on our app. lol" so now, texting people without it really sucks because you can't send full-res images like you can on chat apps like Telegram or Discord. Signal's file size limit is 100MB I believe (which sucks, but it's better than Discord's 50MB if you don't have Nitro)

Not that I'm sending large files constantly... it's just nice to be able to send full-res photos I take with my Sony Alpha camera and other larger files, occasionally. 😅

Of course, I prefer to use encrypted chat apps, but I've found that most folks won't even TRY apps that aren't Telegram or Discord, unless something extreme happens to cause an exodus, but then again... stuff like that happened on Twitter multiple times, and again with 'X' and folks STILL stayed on there.

Thankfully, I don't have to worry about sending photos and files to the very few people I know that use RCS (one friend who won't get any messengers) or basic SMS/MMS (my dad, bc he has a flip phone) bc I have no reason to send them any, and privacy isn't a concern bc we never message about anything sensitive, so I guess I shouldn't let my trepidation bother me so much.

I do hope that Google does finally release RCS so that other developers and mobile network operators can utilize its capabilities in the future, but to be honest, I'm not going to hold my breath. 😜

Show thread

Rusty Corgi Feb 15

@Kaishen Well RCS is an open standard, actually. Google's implementation of it is proprietary for end-to-end encryption, but the standard itself is maintained by the GSMA. Apple pushed for the GSMA to adopt an open protocol for end-to-end encryption, which should be coming soon™, so even that aspect of it being proprietary should be going away at some point.

The problem is that most carriers didn't want to build out their own messaging infrastructure. SMS and MMS was easy for them to host with insanely small file sizes, but I guess supporting RCS in-house wasn't something they wanted to do, so they just commission Google to use their Jibe backend. It's not a closed protocol or anything, it's just that they didn't want to invest in their own infrastructure since they could just pay Google to handle it instead.

But yeah, not having a public API for RCS on Android is completely bullshit. They claim it's because RCS is an evolving specification so they don't want to program an API for it just yet, but considering most of the RCS hand-off could just be (and I think it mostly is?) handled through their stupid Carrier Services apk anyway, I think that's just an excuse to force people to use Google Messages.

Show thread

binutzu Feb 25

@Rusty @Kaishen it is supposed to be open but actually it is a #monopoly as long as only Google Messages is capable (== allowed), in practice, to use RCS on Android. De-googlelized phones cant use even RCS. There is no FOSS client implementation for RCS and this is falling into the category messenger interoperability case of EU, or rather openess for different client implementation.

Show thread

Rusty Corgi

@binutzu @Kaishen The spec was never meant to be truly open. In order to have access to the RCS universal profile, you need to be a SIM provider (ie, a cellular carrier). It meets the EU's interoperability standards because it's interoperable between carriers, not because it's an entirely open specification free to be used by anyone.

But yes, Google is leveraging it to enforce a Google Messages monopoly on Android.