Lock-in through the network effect is lock in. The fact that it’s the de facto standard outside the US is quite a network effect.

SMS by contrast is an open standard.

> Lock-in through the network effect is lock in.

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.

The network effect only results in lock-in if there's an obstacle to using multiple networks at the same time. Obviously no-one is going to carry around two phones, so that's how Apple achieves lock-in. By contrast, keeping two or more messaging apps running is trivial.

And SMS is irrelevant.

SMS is just terrible though, and is just not worth using. It is plain text, limited in size and simply has less features.

What anyone means when they say SMS post ~2010 is SMS/MMS

It didn't get better.

That's just like, your opinion, man. SMS/MMS is decentralized, open, and works on every modern mobile phone out of the box. No other text messaging technology does this yet.

Open for Verizon to read/modify, you have no way of knowing the other half’s identity (was their number given to someone else in the meanwhile), no encoding is specified/due to non-ASCII characters taking more SPACE (in 2022) so auto-SMSs still today will just force ascii text, making it often unreadable. Like, it is literally a single digit number of bytes difference.

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

I get what you’re saying but your home or McDonalds wifi is decidedly a third party, although encryption may mitigate that.

Did you mean WhatsApp doesn't have anywhere near the same lock in as the Messages app? I don't know what you mean by "same lock in as Apple". I also don't know what you would mean by lock in with the Messages app. What's locked in? I can use WhatsApp, Signal, Telegram, WeChat, or any number of communication apps on my iPhone effortlessly.

Apple's messages app isn't really an app; it comes preinstalled on the phone, you can't remove it or substitute it with another app, and you can't install it on non-Apple hardware.

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.

> Apple's messages app isn't really an app; it comes preinstalled on the phone, you can't remove it or substitute it with another app, and you can't install it on non-Apple hardware.

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?

> if you were to somehow uninstall [the Android SMS] app then the default app would appear since it's probably part of the core operating system

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.

I can run WhatsApp on my iPhone. I cannot get my kids' school parents-group not to use WhatsApp. It was a pain to get even my best friends in Europe to use anything except WhatsApp.

Well done that parents' group. Obviously something like Signal would be better, but that'll happen once there's enough social consensus.

Meanwhile, I am lighting a candle for every poor soul that has been pressured into installing Meta products.

What did you propose as the alterntive?

Is WhatsApp open? Are there alternative clients?

Even better: it's a player in a competitive market. So you can switch your chats one-by-one to Signal, Telegram or whatever floats your boat.

What do you mean by switch your chats. You can’t have the chat in more than one client at a time?

Yes, that's why it's switching.

I am glad that the EU actually has another definition of letting people use what is floating their boat: Force big-tech player to open up protocols, so users can send messages from any messenger to any other messenger.

https://techcrunch.com/2022/03/24/dma-political-agreement/

As a user I cannot see any downsides.