It still astounds me
That Google never seemed to 'get' messaging. The one thing you'd think they would have copied from Apple was iMessage, as it would have been so simple to create something similar and put it on Android by default. It would have killed WhatsApp before it really got going, and would undoubtedly be the most-used messaging platform in the world today simply by the sheer numbers of Android users.
Instead they seem to create a new messaging platform every year or two, promote it as the next big thing, and then let it die on the vine because someone inside Google has a better idea, which somehow requires tossing out the old platform, bathwater and all.
I can see RCS replacing SMS from a carrier perspective, as it makes sense in today's 'everything in data' model that arrived with LTE and will be in full force once 2G/3G are permanently extinguished in a few years. But I have a feeling Google will find something shiny that will cause them to forget all about RCS in a couple years, and be pushing that instead.