Honestly, where I operate, almost nobody uses (outgoing) sms/mms - unless their phone has actual physical buttons on it. It’s all iMessage for those who can or something like Viber for those who can’t. I can’t see why anybody would take a step backwards to RCS when it offered nothing that we haven’t already been doing for years - and it’s apparently network dependant.

No, they’re mostly correct; basically no one except Android users in the USA cares. Everywhere else has it figured out with third party messaging platforms that’s geographically favored, and Apple users in USA will continue to use the superior iMessage protocol with each other. Only the Android users in USA are left out from sending/receiving messaging, so they’re salivating over the update like it’s the best thing since sliced bread.

RCS is janky, inconsistent, and carrier dependent. Can’t wait for Android users in the USA to join the better rest of the world. Until GSM consortium mandates end to end encryption and force all carriers to adopt certain version of consistent minimum, RCS is and will continue to be a garbage inferior protocol that should be avoided like the plague.

Doesn’t matter either way because everyone uses WhatsApp anyway.

RCS will never be able to compete with either because it’s a GSMA standard. Apple or Meta can think of a cool new feature, add it to their client and roll it out to all their users with the next update.

If they want to add a new feature to RCS, the GSMA (An organization with over 1500 members) will have to form a committee, they can then talk about their conflicting interestes for a few years before writing down a new version of the standard, then dozens of clients and servers at hundreds of different operators need to be upgraded before everyone can use the new feature. Due to this bullshit RCS will never be able to keep up.