I mean, you don't have to. I appreciate the skepticism. I am the actual author of Ripcord. I've had an account here for many years. You will not find someone with better firsthand knowledge about Ripcord surviving or not surviving legal challenges.
Regardless of the upthread "well, just switch [your company/government/entire friend network] to an open/permissive service" non-answer, I think there's going to be ever-more need for unofficial clients for some of these services, and a big part of that is going to be how to avoid having them shut down immediately by service providers...