3 ms·

Agreed. I hate that we pretend Google is somehow altruistic with their support of RCS. They have many, many incentives and pretending otherwise is naive and obt

Agreed. I hate that we pretend Google is somehow altruistic with their support of RCS. They have many, many incentives and pretending otherwise is naive and obtuse.

rickdeckard 3y ago
> They have many, many incentives and pretending otherwise is naive and obtuse. Okay. The main incentive is to create a competitive method for messaging which allows rich communication with everyone, regardless of platform or ecosystem just via their phone number. Name five more.
- giantrobot 3y ago
  Running a messaging gateway means Google gets all that sweet metadata at the very least and message content in the many cases where E2EE isn't enabled. That's a lot of data to build advertising derivatives all linked to a specific identity.
  - rickdeckard 3y ago
    In best case for Google they can operate the RCS-server for Android devices. Google already owns the Messaging CLIENT for SMS/MMS/RCS on nearly all Android devices as well as the underlying OS itself. There is little new information to gain for them, no matter how Android users communicate with Apple users right now. There is however a lot to gain for them if a unified rich communication standard is established in the market, because apart from finally being able to replace SMS, it would drive platform-agnostic innovation in this area. Google and Apple agreeing on a standard could disrupt the ecosystems of Facebook Messenger, WhatsApp, Vibr, Zoom, MS Teams etc.
    - lxgr 3y ago
      > There is little new information to gain for them, no matter how Android users communicate with Apple users right now. The client and the OS don't really give them any metadata or message content. Operating the server infrastructure would. SMS doesn't touch their servers (except possibly for people that use Google's Messages app and/or backup service); RCS does. > There is however a lot to gain for them if a unified rich communication standard is established in the market, because apart from finally being able to replace SMS, it would drive platform-agnostic innovation in this area. Absolutely, but that open standard will hopefully not be RCS. It's way too coupled to the 3GPP/ITU model of doing things. I trust the organizations in charge of the web and Internet (who brought us email and XMPP/Jabber!) a bit more than those who still somewhat yearn for the days in which OTT players did not exist and telecommunication was charged by the mile and minute or message.
      - rickdeckard 3y ago
        > The client and the OS don't really give them any metadata or message content. The client includes a spam protection service which allows them to send message data to a server for scanning. Every other messaging app uses the Notification service to send the message and its relevant metadata to the OS. So as far as conspiracy goes, Google has all the means to get the data already today.

Agreed. I hate that we pretend Google is somehow altruistic with their support of RCS. They have many, many incentives and pretending otherwise is naive and obtuse.

rickdeckard 3y ago

> They have many, many incentives and pretending otherwise is naive and obtuse. Okay. The main incentive is to create a competitive method for messaging which allows rich communication with everyone, regardless of platform or ecosystem just via their phone number. Name five more.

giantrobot 3y ago
Running a messaging gateway means Google gets all that sweet metadata at the very least and message content in the many cases where E2EE isn't enabled. That's a lot of data to build advertising derivatives all linked to a specific identity.
- rickdeckard 3y ago
  In best case for Google they can operate the RCS-server for Android devices. Google already owns the Messaging CLIENT for SMS/MMS/RCS on nearly all Android devices as well as the underlying OS itself. There is little new information to gain for them, no matter how Android users communicate with Apple users right now. There is however a lot to gain for them if a unified rich communication standard is established in the market, because apart from finally being able to replace SMS, it would drive platform-agnostic innovation in this area. Google and Apple agreeing on a standard could disrupt the ecosystems of Facebook Messenger, WhatsApp, Vibr, Zoom, MS Teams etc.
  - lxgr 3y ago
    > There is little new information to gain for them, no matter how Android users communicate with Apple users right now. The client and the OS don't really give them any metadata or message content. Operating the server infrastructure would. SMS doesn't touch their servers (except possibly for people that use Google's Messages app and/or backup service); RCS does. > There is however a lot to gain for them if a unified rich communication standard is established in the market, because apart from finally being able to replace SMS, it would drive platform-agnostic innovation in this area. Absolutely, but that open standard will hopefully not be RCS. It's way too coupled to the 3GPP/ITU model of doing things. I trust the organizations in charge of the web and Internet (who brought us email and XMPP/Jabber!) a bit more than those who still somewhat yearn for the days in which OTT players did not exist and telecommunication was charged by the mile and minute or message.
    - rickdeckard 3y ago
      > The client and the OS don't really give them any metadata or message content. The client includes a spam protection service which allows them to send message data to a server for scanning. Every other messaging app uses the Notification service to send the message and its relevant metadata to the OS. So as far as conspiracy goes, Google has all the means to get the data already today.