Audience: This thread is specifically for the segment of GOS users who find themselves dependent on cellular SMS/MMS/RCS for messaging, and even more specifically, those attempting to avoid Play Services as a daily driver. If circumstances allow you to exclusively use Signal, WhatsApp, or some other web-based messaging platform, or if you otherwise run Sandboxed Play Services without hesitation, keep scrolling
Situation: In case you missed it, last week's iOS 26.3 included references to RCS Universal Profile 3.0. If fully incorporated, iMessages would support E2EE RCS. As in, any RCS messages sent between any array of iMessages & GMessage users would enjoy E2EE, opposed to the current paradigm, wherein the only RCS users who enjoy E2EE are exclusively chats that use GMessages by all parties
Question for debate: as things stand now, many GOS users feel Play Services are a privacy risk, and choose to use GOS without Play Services installed. Those that need cellular texting use a third party SMS app, preferring the weak SMS comms protocol to running Play Services for only sporadic E2EE. But if widespread E2EE texting with all your contacts is on the table, would you consider running both GMessages & its Play Services dependency?