Apple

I mean for sensible human beings who are able to look past the colour of a digital bubble, this change breaks a lot of barriers for people who have iphones due to complications of texting with SMS. Those complications will no longer exist and there would be less incentive to stick with Iphones unless they are buried in the ecosystem.

If there are no downsides then why did the EU have to strongarm them into doing it?

No downside for Apple users. There’s some downside to Apple because it reduces lock in.

In a q and a a reporter even asked Apple a question about this directly

But the person who asked the question, Vox Media’s LiQuan Hunt, came back with a valid complaint, saying that his mother can’t see the videos he sends her. It all comes down to a lack of interoperability between iMessage and RCS, both messaging systems that could allow higher-quality images and videos — if they worked together. If you’ve tried to send a video from Android to iOS (or vice versa) using your regular text messaging app, then you know that your videos come out completely fuzzy on the other end. Cook’s suggestion to fix this annoying issue? “Buy your mom an iPhone.”

Just as long as I don’t get the text version when a green bubble person “likes” my message, I’m happy.

I mean having AirPlay/shareplay features in RCS texting isn’t what people are asking for. It’s functional cross-platform group texts, read receipts, full sized media sharing, and other basic features that RCS hopes to bring to all smartphones.

So why did Apple refuse for so long if there is no downside?