Apple is the last real holdout here, keeping SMS and MMS alive.
> [...] want to implement something "different" [...]
The slippery-slope argument we're seeing here is that eventually, regulations would require all products and services to be exactly the same for inter-compatibility, which in turn induces a cooling effect on any innovation or novel developments (at least for existing product verticals under regulatory capture).
Setting a baseline for interoperability is not the same as requiring them all to be the same.
With infinite amounts of other free apps, why are regulations necessary? Let people decide for themselves.
Should we take the same approach with clean air and see what happens?
On how messaging works on thousand-dollar phones? Yes.
If your were in charge when the telephone network was designed, poor people would not even be able to make a phonecall to their middleclass neighbour or senator, they'd have to buy a special Rich People phone
The lawlessness described here isn't harm on a third party against their consent. It's fully known by both parties at the time of the voluntary transaction.
That's pretty funny considering the European Commission's original complaint against Apple was for anti-competitive behavior.
Maybe things would have turned out differently if Apple hadn't embraced, extended and extinguished SMS. Maybe regulators would be a little more lenient if the App Store was ruled with anything other than an iron fist. But now they have to take action, not because Apple is unique, but because their business practices are interfering with the progress of the rest of the industry. Competitive agency is a weak excuse when they're a noted tyrant on their own platform.
It is, in actuality, anti-competitive as there is no way to a competitor to participate other than creating a separate platform or App for messaging. Because iMessage comes with and is supported by both all iPhones and Apple it is an uneven playing field; it is impossible to compete & is therefore anti-competitive.
The same thing would happen with TMSC, at the moment Apple buys out a large chunk if not all of their production capacity for a node - this is fine, it's just business. If Apple said to TMSC, "we'll buy out all your capacity for this node but only if you contractually refuse to sell this node to any other company while we're using it" this is anti-competitive behaviour.
They would call this a win.
Not arguing against your comment. Just adding a viewpoint that some have. I.e Big government should spend more time on these kind of things instead of “life saving” things.
Google would probably love it if Android shipped with a Google-branded, end-to-end encrypted messaging app that people liked to use.
I think that there is a combination of internal Google problems and problems in Google’s relationships with Android vendors that makes this difficult. And then, any such app would be probably be in, what, 6th place at this point? Meanwhile, Meta has apps #1 and #2.
I would argue that the evidence over the past several years has shown that the default position w.r.t. to Google's motivations should not default to 'benign' under any circumstance. With all other things being equal, and without evidence to the contrary, it makes sense to operate under the assumption that Google will enthusiastically and universally do everything they can to violate your privacy in any manner available to them, no matter how subtle.
“Not benign” and “not malicious” can both be true. Google is motivated by self-interest, is staffed by engineers which have various conflicting self-interest and ideologies, and has a culture with various competencies and dysfunctions. Sometimes Google will do things that benefit consumers and sometimes Google will do things that harm consumers, but it’s not out of altruism nor is it out of malice.
Same as other large companies.
How do you explain all these damn GDPR pop ups on every site that make it as difficult as possible to disagree?
New regulations were drafted that required these popups to be as easy to agree as to disagree, precisely because of this.
Right now, too many end users get fatigue fooled into blaming the EU rather than the companies tracking them, whereas on mobile they are aware that it's Facebook triggering the dialog, not the EU: just see how many users end up refusing Facebook tracking when they have a clear choice that doesn't push them one way or the other.
It would even help companies who currently delegate handling GDRP to thirdparty services that prey on small companies worried about being non-compliant.
So for me, that reads as anytime I am asked about consent, it is an admission that the site is using my data/adding cookies in a way that is unnecessary and invasive. Automatically decline!
I'm working at removing google analytics from my product site specifically because it means I don't need a cookie consent popup any longer, despite supporting log in (which will set an actually essential, non-third-party cookie).
The fallacy here is that you don't get to decide what "social good" is, especially in this case. People get to choose what is good for them, we're talking about tech products here. I see regulations in this specific case as something that goes against progress, whatever that means for the company of your favorite messaging app for the reasons I've explained above.
What about startups that will have to think about this one more thing and maybe put in twice the work when they want to validate their new product?
We're probably leaving out about thousands of other cases here, that's why I made the argument that it sounds nice but it's actually making things worse from my point of view.
Well, technically I have a say, I elect my leaders and can write to them with my opinion. Often it is the case that salesmen and charletons get into those positions but the basic premise of those positions is that they're intended to act in the social good. What you propose is that somehow tech companies will act in the social good by themselves, which I find particularly dubious.
All capitalist companies (and by that I mean, any company that is enjoying success in a capitalist society) have an often unstated goal of monopolising their market.
It is a natural outcome of competition that eventually there is a victor. The whole premise of capitalism is that competition is good, but eventually the strongest will win and you have a monopolistic leader.
The only antidote to this is regulations.
Making the argument that regulation hurts smaller companies is also something uniquely American. This regulation (and many other tech regulations) are really aimed at people abusing their position today, not some theoretical startup that somehow captures 60% of a market overnight.
FWIW, I actually really like iMessage and agree with the decision Apple made not to open it, but I can't abide talk like this because a lot of people seem to think that regulation is somehow anti-capitalist, when in reality regulation is the only thing that could keep the capitalist machine running once there is a monopoly position or a sufficient moat around a service.
Well, I respectfully disagree, I'm a firm believer that regulations disproportionately hurt smaller businesses in the long run because those giants that have the monopoly move way faster than governments and they usually have thousands of smart lawyers ready to find holes and exploit/get around regulations made, usually, by people that does not understand the subject enough.
Want to take a guess and see who does not have thousands of smart lawyers?
Just FYI: We have the Apple example with USB-C ready to showcase this exact thing
I have so far had good experiences with the legal system and regulations by choosing industries that are not unethical.
Nobody is chasing people who are not in violation of the cardinal rule zero: "Do not act in a way that requires [me] to make a new rule"
Yeah you made the point very clear already in all your other posts, no need to repeat it everywhere. Other point errors in your arguments like this being for 75b corps completely nullifying your core arguments, lets just say most of the forum including me, EU and indeed world doesn't share your view at all.
In fact, some healthy dose of regulations makes society actual modern society, less people dying and suffering because money-first. Speed of progress at any costs, believe it or not, is not the ultimate measure of how 'good', moral or developed society is, despite very very few getting richer quicker that way.
I don't know if that's what it means in the EU, but operationally it's observably what it means in the USA. I will say from a distance it looks like the EU's unelected bureaucrats have eve more power than the American ones do.
The EU's civil servants are, by and large, an exceptionally talented bunch of people, most of whom are multilingual in addition to being experts in the fields they were hired for.
As for their having power, it's subject to democratic constraint. Maybe you should inform yourself about the process by which EU regulations are made? (No, it isn't perfect; you could start with the Trilogue Process).
We'll regulate as we see fit in the EU. Businesses that don't like it are welcome and free to go do business elsewhere.
I predict that if the US foreign policy elite deems it desirable that Google operate in Europe, then Google will operate in Europe. The US based empire is happy to let the EU regulate cheese and wine, but when it comes to geopolitics they keep them on a tight leash. The Ukraine affair has shown that beyond all doubt. Hats off to the French though for rejecting permanent occupying forces under De Gaulle and never letting them back.
It's nice to pretend that GDPR somehow struck a blow against corporate overreach, but in reality it was permitted because it didn't degrade the value of Big Tech for the Intelligence Community.
You have proposed no mehcanism to keep monopolies in check. You are a firm beliver in what?
> giants that have the monopoly move way faster than governments
So governments should be even more agressive and disproportionate to be effevtive? That is the inevitable conclusion of your argument.
Seriously? There was no regulation on search, so how did google become a monopoly?
I think USB-C's relatively flimsily implemented open standard is kind of evidence of why Apple is hesitant to things like RCS. Good luck charging a Nintendo Switch or your laptop with just a random usb-c cable you found laying around that came with who knows what. Hope you have an entire day day.
That's ridiculous. There's plenty of companies that want to do what they do well and make a good profit, but have no interest in being the only player in their market.
I wish people being even that principled... I think the reactionaries in this debate are just the current generation of Apple "fanbois" who, for whatever reason, feel some need to "protect" a trillion-dollar company, or just good ol' fashioned elitism?
My pet theory is that the frothy bile in posts wanting to keep iMessage private is probably grounded in psychology/sociology: People with a quite genuine fondness for Apple's products and services, combined with their higher barriers to entry (monetary cost), forms the basis for their in-group identity, and they don't want an out-group seen as inferior (Android users, etc) from getting to join-in their, private, shared-experience. It's the same as with kids fighting over PlayStation vs Xbox.
Heh, it reminds me of when I was like that: I was a very visibly-on-the-spectrum kid who knew Photoshop, before anyone else at my school even knew what it was; when MSN Messenger 6.0 came out with support for custom user avatars/profile-pics: I thought this would lead to "normal" people learning Photoshop/digital-art and airbrushing and all getting their own Wacom tablets to make their own avatar-art and I'd lose my... special status as that one weird kid who knows Photoshop. Nah, turns out in the end everyone at school just used photos of themselves or the logos of rock bands (Radiohead's was popular) or sportswear brands. And in 2023, most people still don't know Photoshop.
So being an Apple user tends to makes someone protective of whatever they feel makes Apple... Apple. Fortunately those people aren't MEPs who get to vote on legislation with a demonstrable public benefit.
Again, there's no clear-cut answer at any given time whether or not "this particular possibly-restrictive regulation is good for everyone." Sometimes it is, sometimes it ain't. That's what you use democracy/government for, to figure these things out.
How do negative externalities and imperfect information figure into that? Sure, I'd love to buy Monsanto's awesome defoliant because it's cheaper than BASF's equivalent, but I may also get cancer from it in 5 years, or I may be killing pollinating insects for many miles downwind and downstream.
Do you suppose market forces could have gotten rid of lead in paint or gasoline if regulations hadn't?
Due to network effects of communication tools, this is not really true.
It is definitely a hard thing to overcome but not impossible. Especially as people become more privacy focused. I, for example, have had zero luck moving my family to Signal, and I'm the only non iPhone in the family network with my grapheneos phone and receive constant complaints about how I mess up group threads.
Yes. Consider how cars have become incredibly safe over the years. Is this because the government writes good regulations? No. It is because IIHS (and the government, as well) do crash tests and publish the results. Consumers gravitate towards cars that have top safety ratings.
Ironically, the government is why leaded gasoline still exists at all.
It is a much better method of concensus than regulation when no involuntary third party harm exists. It ensures those that have a stake are able to vote, where the size of your vote is proportional to the resources dedicated. Of course not everyone has equal voting power. Why should they when it comes to privately consumed goods and services?
As an iPhone, iPad, and iMessage user, please explain how I will "suffer horribly" from being able to interact with the iMessage service from non-Apple devices.
If anyone can do iMessage on any device, it is logical that these protections may weaken over time.
At worst you could be flooded with invites but that wouldn't be much different than any one of our linkedin accounts and there could be easy mechanism to ban external servers that are reported to allow too many spammers.
2) Apple may choose not to try to implement new features that they otherwise would have, for several possible reasons: similar to #1, they don't think they can feasibly implement them cross-platform; due to the extra effort of supporting multiple platforms, they no longer have the dev resources to devote to it; they think it will no longer be as profitable; etc
Apple obviously won't write these apps, or support those apps or the devices they run on.
Also, If Apple at a later date add features to the iMessage protocol then they document the changes & make this available and are clearly not responsible to implement or support these changes on platforms other than their own.
Apple is not being forced to do anything at all here, except stop blocking other vendors from using iMessage.
> All apple have to do is release documentation on the iMessage protocol, and allow other vendors to use this protocol to build apps that can use apple's iMessage service.
Your very argument is contradictory. The law does require Apple to do something. It requires them to reveal trade secrets and IP.
Do you know the specific requirements of the law, and that this would be within their terms? Because, as I stated fairly clearly, I do not know what the law requires, and was working based on one possible (fairly strict) version of what it could be.
If the law just says Apple has to open the protocol, then that certainly reduces the potential problems—but, as hellojesus points out, there may be aspects of the service that Apple is unwilling to give away because they involve trade secrets. Now, you and I may not particularly care whether Apple is able to protect every single one of its trade secrets, but I guarantee you they do, and unless the law is worded such that it requires them to give those away (again: Do you know the wording of the law? If so, please share and enlighten us!), I think that there's a very good chance that they will choose to remove functionality from iMessage rather than do so.
To be quite clear, on the whole, I think that opening up iMessage will be for the best, even being an Apple and iMessage user myself. I was simply responding to a post that was asking for potential ways in which existing iMessage users could suffer because of it.
It's a chat app. It's one of the first apps a programmer learns to make.
The one and only thing separating iMessage from 10,000 other chat apps is the fact it's the default on the most common phone.
The trade secret is inertia and anti competitive lock-in.
No, the biggest fans of “free markets” do not think that, in fact, they mock both the general idea of “market failure” and the specific places where people outside their faith identify such failures:
https://mises.org/library/market-failure
https://mises.org/library/market-failure-myth
https://mises.org/library/myth-market-failure
Central banking does not exist in a free market. Of course it will fail. Free markets are designed precisely to avoid the inevitable failure of a central authority.
You may have clicked on it, but I don’t see how you got that message from it. It argues that free markets are good, and that problems attributed to “market failure” are instead failures of other things (like central banking) that are not features of free markets. (All of the other pieces argue variations on the same thing; its plays a central role in the Mises Institute’s economic dogma.)
Ah, so you have never heard of market failure, market manipulation, cartels, negative externalities, qash trading, self dealing, insider trading, wage supression agreements, and dozens of others?
You do realise that without government to keep fraud and manipulation in check 'free market' collapses into anarchy in one week?
Can you provide an example of this? Or maybe point out some theory/philosophy that builds to this? I'm not trying to be a dick, I'm legitimately curious what is out there as this doesn't seem like a self-evident claim.
He or she doesn’t get to, but the society does. Collectively. Not individually. That’s the premise that makes the difference between “society” and a “collection of individuals”
People have decided, by voting.
Why do you think voting with your wallet is the only legitimate way of expressing your wishes? What if someone is poor, they get no vote?
Maybe tbe poor person needs access to technology to not be poor, and the markets have locked them out?
> What about startups
The laws that apply to monopolies / oligopolies dont apply to startups
Flourish is a generous term.. There are countless examples of companies in all industries who will take full advantage of no regulations in the pursuit of profits solely.
And only when it's too late and they have caused so much chaos for people will they lobby for their own "symbolic" regulations.
There is a happy medium in there somewhere, but the US model is not it.
Mojang and Skype come to mind. As well as three of my former companies that are now owned by Oracle.
The EU market is definitely harder, it is not as contiguous and large as the US one, even the smallest required task: localisation, is hugely expensive.
So you can hit a critical scale faster in the US, sure, but any time anyone actually conquers Europe all that awaits them is acquisition.
Also, anecdotally, SMS was invented in europe so no need to regulate something already open and european.
Regulations are the best tool for that. But there's always sabotage as a fallback.
Feels like a uniquely american take. Companies that are maliciously compliant are not the norm.
Leaving behind that most is an ambiguous enough term that means you could basically discredit anything I come up with, how do you feel about regulations that limit the use of harmful or toxic chemicals?
What about regulations that disallow predatory gambling, or the sale of products that do not meet their claims?
Regulations are the only tool that society has to prevent companies acting against the social good.
If you think the regulations are bad then you should genuinely consider sending updated versions to your representatives.