FWIW, my understanding was that Apple did try to engage with carriers, but there was't interest in turning RCS into what Apple wanted (for instance, adding E2EE).
AFAIK 15 years later, RCS still hasn't started to define E2EE.
Interesting, I tried to find a reference to this online but was unable. If you can find a link to such a statement let me know.
What's kind of interesting about this to me is that Google was able to add encrypted messaging on top of RCS without the help of carriers (and it's not just because they develop/host Jibe, the most common RCS server side implementation-- E2EE messages can be sent over any RCS server/relay from what I understand). They just use a special mimetype and some base64 encoding and a custom identity server for exchanging keys. All things Apple could have done with RCS back in 2011.
What was also really revealing is Signal’s operational cost breakdown. Their biggest cost is activation texts, because providers have lost consumer SMS as a milk cow, so they’ve now started to charge insane rates for business texts.
With RCS or iMessage they cannot justify charging for these.
Well that's their own fault for requiring a phone number. They could just support creating accounts with username and password and they would never have to send texts. It would be way better for user privacy too.
