RCS group chat is Hotel California

Initially, when RCS chats arrived, I was excited and thought, “finally, we have a way on Android to text like we can on Apple”. It was really nice to be able to communicate over “text messages” like we do in WhatsApp, for example, and iMessage.

That wonderful fuzzy feeling quickly evaporated. As soon as my network operator rolled out the group chat functionality, I lost interest. RCS chat was, until then, quite fun to use for one-to-one messages. And with group chat came the spam.

Literally 15 to 20 days into having group chat functionality, I was added to my first spam group. Someone created a group to advertise a lovely-sounding job with an exceptionally high remuneration package of about 500k a year plus benefits! I mean, cool, but it was a junior data entry position?? I’m in the wrong business!

The very next day, I was added to another group and the following day, yet another. Three is the magic number, so I turned RCS off. Unfortunately, there is no way to opt-out of groups completely; it’s an all-or-nothing situation with RCS.

I’m not quite sure about everyone’s obsession with group chats. By everyone, I mean everyone and everything. WhatsApp and Signal have it and I’m pretty sure that every “chat” app has it. It is the ubiquitous feature of chat apps. I do not know of a single obscure one which does not have group chat built-in.

And that’s OK. I am not against group chat; it has its uses. I would, however, like to have a way to opt-out of it if I so desire.

That is the number problem with RCS; there is literally no way to disable groups. Anyone can create a group and add anyone to it. The only thing you can do in this case is either leave the group or mute it. If you leave, you can be added back at any time. So RCS is rubbish in that respect. The other thing you can do is block the group admin but where does that stop when these spammers keep switching phone numbers. It is a poor design choice; appalling actually.

There is no privacy built-in, none whatsoever. Your phone number can be randomly guessed and added to a group and you have no adequate means to fight back besides constantly blocking. It is opt-in by default and you’re on your own, mate. Hotel California:

We are programmed to receive
You can check out any time you like
But you can never leave

The exit on my device is “Turn off RCS chat”.