There have been dozens, called anything from Message+ to Joyn. Most seem to be shutting down, though, because nobody used RCS since its inception from somewhere around 2009 and renewed interest in launching RCS services around 2012.
I think Google‘s was something different. This is an actual standard that Apple is committing to implement. I was under the impression Google’s encryption was just their own layer thing they added on top it was not actually standardized.
When people asked last year about why Apple wasn’t implementing encrypted RCS I think they even said that they wanted to wait for a standard.
So an important context here is the server side implementation of RCS is Google's at every major carrier. Google bought the carrier-side provider of RCS services, Jibe, and so the entire RCS stack is still basically just Google Chat with an "it's a standard" label on it.
Verizon, AT&T, and T-Mobile all use Google's RCS implementation, the only way to not send Google your messages in the US is to own an iPhone and disable RCS.
> Verizon, AT&T, and T-Mobile all use Google's RCS implementation, the only way to not send Google your messages in the US is to own an iPhone and disable RCS.
