Correction: The CARRIERS intended to all host a own RCS server, before Google was even part of the picture. The idea was for every carrier to be the gatekeeper

Correction: The CARRIERS intended to all host a own RCS server, before Google was even part of the picture. The idea was for every carrier to be the gatekeeper of his subscribers, so no one was giving up anything and everyone wins. The strongest carriers in the working group rolled out their own servers in the initial stage of development, a total of five only IIRC. No one else followed because there was no visibility on return of investment. At that time, major device vendors maintained their own SMS-app to navigate all the custom requirements of the carriers in the world. Google aimed to standardise the client and include all these carrier-specific customizations, but RCS was about to fragment this space even further, as every vendor was expected to integrate his own client. Google then stepped in in 2015 by acquiring Jibe, a main supplier of RCS servers and the developer of a vendor-agnostic RCS-client. At this point only ONE carrier still considered to buy a own server. Google continues maintaining the existing servers and also offers to host RCS as a service for carriers. Overall goal was to defragment both the server and the client area, as this was the only way to scale. It's time for others to step in and balance the playing field again, Apple is the best candidate for that.