Yea but that's a problem too.
SMS by contrast is an open standard.
Exactly. If your complaint is about being locked in but the platform you use is the one everyone has to use because of network effect or otherwise you yourself are locked in with that platform.
And SMS is irrelevant.
Also, you need like.. a carrier plan to access, wouldn’t really call that open. Any network based messenger can work over my home or even McDonald’s wifi, without any third-parties
The lock-in is obvious: if you're part of Apple-oriented chat groups you can't switch to Android without losing access to those groups, degrading the experience for everyone, or convincing each one of those groups to make the switch to a multi-platform alternative. Claiming not to see this is disingenuous.
I'm not sure, but I don't think you can actually uninstall the default SMS from Android phones either without having another app installed at a minimum and then I bet similar to Messages if you were to somehow uninstall that app then the default app would appear since it's probably part of the core operating system (similar to other basic functionality like settings or a phone app to receive calls).
I don't know what you mean by you cannot substitute Messages with another app. If I didn't want to use Messages I would just disable all settings and remove it from the home screen and use whatever I wanted instead just fine.
You are correct that you cannot install Messages on non-Apple hardware. Not all software is open source or available for all platforms. For example I cannot install Playstation software on my Xbox, nor can I buy a Nest Thermostat and install a competitor's software on it (without hacking both of course). There are games that are made that aren't created with support for macOS. Etc.
> if you're part of Apple-oriented chat groups you can't switch to Android without losing access to those groups
What is an Apple-oriented chat group?
No. Why would it?
> I don't know what you mean by you cannot substitute Messages with another app.
On Android, if you don't like the SMS app you can replace it with another app that has all the same functionality (and more). Does Apple let you do that?
> What is an Apple-oriented chat group?
Please engage with the discussion. One that uses Apple's proprietary SMS extensions, obviously.
https://techcrunch.com/2022/03/24/dma-political-agreement/
As a user I cannot see any downsides.
I wish Signal would be more popular, but it's just not. I can't really ask new people I meet to communicate over Signal because it's a burden to get others to install some new application.
In a U.S. court of law Apple has stood up to authority and pointed out they can't provide the messages requested as they're locked even to Apple. Facebook on the other hand has acquiesced to U.S. law enforcement. That tells me that even if Facebook has secured end-to-end messaging, which I don't think they've ever claimed, they have backdoors.
Given that I don't see why more of us Americans aren't using WhatsApp! :)
Completely false. I have multiple group chats in Messenger. The people who “don’t trust Zuckerberg” enough to not use his messaging products are a tiny minority of people in the US.
Nonetheless, it is a self-made problem in the US, which wouldn’t even make sense in the EU because we don’t have such a high percentage of apple devices.
This is a common excuse I hear in college to not use FB messenger or Whatsapp. But those same people usually have no issues using Instagram DMs. For most people, it's just a cover story to mask the real reason: Facebook messenger and whatsapp are uncool in the US
In the USA we had opposite plans during this time. Unlimited talk/text, but strict data caps.
Some of Europe has very effective telecom infrastructure, but that's far from universal.
Usually, if you don't have data for signal (as opposed to run out of data in your plan) reasons, then you don't have signal at all, even for SMS, either...
At least where I live, 4G got deployed on the low bands freed up by the digital TV switchover and hence has the best reception in remote areas.
Trusting your private conversations to ~Facebook~ Meta is also a signal.
And sms group chats? I only know about sms group chats from US posters.
You can just assume everyone has Whatsapp here, and just message them over that.