They all have iPhones and Google Android. Since all my calls and text messages are monitored on their phones, am I causing any additional harm to myself by using Google Messages on GrapheneOS? That way I could at least use RCS messaging.
Google RCS, which is effectively just another proprietary internet messaging app despite being based on a standard at least claims to use end-to-end encryption, and is probably more resistant to mass surveillance than SMS. If those are your options, Google RCS is an upgrade.
You can lead a horse to water, you cannot make it drink.
With my people from we use Signal.
Friends and family stick to text as it too hard to make everyone else change.
Because their friends use text… why change…
¯\_(ツ)_/¯
IMHO it’s not just about the messages but whatever else the app might have access to just by being installed on your phone.
delta chat. solves this problem as it uses the email protocol with pgp (when available), so from your end it’s a chat client and from their end it’s an email from you.
if they find it too annoying to reply by email they could just install the delta chat “email client”, too ;)