TL;DR
- Users who have rooted their phone, have their bootloader unlocked or are using some custom ROMs report that their RCS messages are not being sent, even though RCS shows them as connected.
- The Google Messages app does not show any error messages when blocking RCS messages of these users and does not send the messages out as SMS or MMS either.
- Google famously campaigned for Apple to include RCS messaging in iMessage but is now blocking it for certain Android users.
you had me in the first line
but no thanks Facebook app
Not a defense of Meta, just saying what’s used. And if the option is completely insecure SMS or RCS vs WhatsApp, WhatsApp is a clear winner. If you could push everyone to a better app like a signal or telegram, sure. But the world is on WhatsApp. And if you look at how hard it is to get Americans off of SMS or iMessage, that’s the issue you have with now 2 billion people minimum to get them to use a better more secure platform. And their perceived benefit for that trouble is near zero.