> * Carriers CAN and likely WILL charge for it, because they can and because sadly (as noted above) RCS is visible to them as something more than an encrypted s

> * Carriers CAN and likely WILL charge for it, because they can and because sadly (as noted above) RCS is visible to them as something more than an encrypted stream of data Exactly. Carriers will see this as another revenue opportunity with almost zero marginal cost. They'll pounce on charging a premium for it. They want the glory days of per-minute per-text charges where you had to buy large pre-paid packages or risk high per-message charges. Google has failed themselves repeatedly at their chat offerings. I personally believe it is due simply to Google's incentives: You don't get a promotion for maintaining hangouts. Wave, GChat/Talk, Hangouts, Allo. All failed by Google neglect. Why should RCS be any better. It isn't even dependent on Google's neglect. It is dependent on our already highly unreliable North American carriers.