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The rest of the world doesn’t use SMS/RCS/iMessage as much as WhatsApp and the like
SMSes use a standard available to any app. WhatsApp is controlled by a single company.
If you were arguing that XMPP or something like that should be used instead of SMS, okay, that's one thing, but I have a hard time favoring a walled garden.
Ok, I'm gonna get into this.
2005: Google Talk released.
2013: Google Hangouts released.
2015: Google announces Google Talk shutting down, encourages people to move to Hangouts.
2016: Despite Hangouts being a one stop shop for SMS and Chat, Google discourages people from using it for SMS, asking people to use the Google Messages app instead.
2016: Google Allo released.
2016: RCS adoption begins.
2017: Google Talk shuts down.
2017: Google Chat released.
2017: Hangouts is re-targeted for business and moves to some sort of consumer freemium model?
~2018(?): YouTube Chat released, a 1:1 messaging system inside of YouTube. No idea when it was discontinued but it didn't last long.
2019: Google Allo discontinued.
2022: Whatever was left of Hangouts is discontinued.
2023: RCS through Google Messenger is now default instead of SMS and group messages are finally encrypted.
Compare this to:
2011: iMessage released. As far as I can tell, it's been e2e encrypted since at least 2012 and potentially since release.
Google, you have no fucking leg to stand on. Get your shit together. If you had had a coherent messaging strategy, maybe Apple would have been amenable to working with you, but what incentive do they have right now? For all anyone knows, you'll drop RCS by 2026 in favor of moving everyone to Google Heythere, the new ridiculous app for messaging!
Your comment is disingenuous.
Adding the 2018 YouTube Chat isn't fair. Google has products that allow communicating between users. It was never meant to be any replacement for SMS, it was simply a chat system within YouTube. You know, the same YouTube that has had DM's since day 1?
You also said in 2016 Google encourages people to use the Google Messages app. The same app being used today.
Google also launched other apps around the same time. Apps that were in development for a while. Then they shut them down, to focus all of the features/time into Google Messages.
You're also adding very specific apps that Google never intended to make into an SMS app. Like Google Chat or Hangouts Rebrand.
Your timeline is disingenuous. Essentially from 2016 - NOW Google has been working on making Google Messages the one stop shop. Only 5 years less than Apple has been making iMessage.
Samsung supported RCS natively in their messaging apps since about 2013, and my carrier released their own RCS+SMS messaging app around that time to bridge the gap for non-samsung android users
Google was pretty late to the RCS boat lol
Signal. Use Signal.
I would like to use it but no one else does
Make them
Signal removed SMS integration, making adoption less likely.
When I could install Signal on my parents phones, and they could SMS and Signal message in the same app, it was great. Especially since any contacts that happened to have Signal, it just worked. My parents didn't have to do anything.
After Signal removed SMS, my parents just open up Google Messages and message everyone from there. They don't want to juggle two apps. They also don't really understand it. They just go back to the "main menu", select their friends name, and type. Signal shot themselves in the foot.
How about we adopt open standards
Here's the thing - the rest of us do use SMS, we just weren't gullible enough to fall for Apple's bullshit about text bubble colours
That's fuckin infantile 😂
War?
Oh, right, that wrist cutting thing Apple users do in that one single continent I never visited. That. Right. They do need the help.
Good for them.
WhatsApp certainly dominates Europe but I'd love to see a universal standard to replace SMS. The less messaging apps the better. WhatsApp is owned by Meta after all...
The rest of the world doesn’t use SMS/RCS/iMessage as much as WhatsApp and the like, so the US is pretty much lagging behind everyone else on this anyway.
Not sure I want to end up with Facebook controlling my messaging...
So do people in the US chiefly send messages via SMS rather than WhatsApp and others like it? That's so bizarre to me haha.
It is less that people use SMS and more that people just don't use WhatsApp. I have a mix of group chats, including some with SMS and Facebook Chat. However, no one uses Whatsapp.
Yeah I use Facebook Messenger and Snapchat to keep up with friends and RCS/SMS mostly for family. Never used WhatsApp before though.
I would say that was the case in the UK generally about 5 years ago. But WhatsApp increasingly took over as the norm because it was clean, quick, relatively well encrypted, and made sending gifs and stickers easy and fun for the average user. Plus, the youth aren't only wedded to iPhones unlike the US increasingly.
I use RCS, except for the handful of iPhone users that receive an SMS from me. The group is small, because more and more people are switching over to Android.
I guess the iPhone sales numbers in the US are keeping them awake. I personally think Apple will only bend if they are forced somehow by the US government, like the way EU did with type-C.
Not using proprietary protocols isn't lagging behind.
At least props for Stereo MC's Connected.
If you're using Google Messages anyway, it's true that RCS is a half-notch better than SMS. Unfortunately, it doesn't compete with any decent chat service on any front—Not signal, not Whatsapp, not Matrix, not even Telegram, and Telegram sucks ass. It's fully centralized, Google gets all of your metadata (which is not worse than Facebook getting all of your metadata, but it is something that Apple obviously won't agree to), there's only one app that does it...
have they even figured out how to encrypt group chats yet?
not even Telegram, and Telegram sucks ass
Telegram is literally pioneering messaging apps. Everything that other apps add, Telegram has added first. Go look at their blog post updates, and you'll see how far ahead of the curve they are. Features that WhatsApp is getting in 2023, Telegram added back in 2016.
I am assuming you think they "suck ass", because you're upset the E2EE is not enabled by default, and you have to open a private E2EE chat with someone? You know, the same buttons you press to open a non-E2EE chat?
Telegram is literally pioneering messaging apps.
Oh, is that why they haven't figured out how to encrypt a group chat yet? Or how to sync an encrypted chat? Or how to institute any of their fucking features in an encrypted chat?
They still don't have multi-channel chat groups, do they? And there's still a limit on how big their chat groups can be, unlike Matrix / Discord / Slack, right?
Everything that other apps add, Telegram has added first.
Oh, you're talking about "broadcast channels." No, actually, Twitter added that feature first, it's called Twitter. Telegram Broadcast Channels are just a social network, except it's unmoderated, so crypto scammers can play around there with impunity. Wow, incredible feature!
But oh boy, you have lots of sticker packs!
Oh, and it looks like they added stories after Snapchat did it, and then after Facebook did it... what, ten times? fifteen? Yeah, sure, Telegram invented those.
I am assuming you think they “suck ass”, because you’re upset the E2EE is not enabled by default, and you have to open a private E2EE chat with someone? You know, the same buttons you press to open a non-E2EE chat?
That's one of the bigger issues, I'm guessing you haven't actually tried using one of those chats since you seem to be excited about all of Telegram's "features." Yeah, sorry, this untold disaster against privacy is an insult to its users' intelligence, and the users can't tell.