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Re:EU will require Apple to open up iMessage by hellojesus on Thursday March 02, 2023 @12:41PM (#34999001)
The whole point of market economies is to let people vote with their resources. The alternative of having people vote for a representative body that regulates how they transact is far worse. Best case you get a almost as good outcome. Worst case is 49.9% of people suffer horribly under state enforced "social good".
Re:EU will require Apple to open up iMessage by kirel33 on Thursday March 02, 2023 @12:47PM (#34999097)
The whole point of market economies is for those who have the most wealth decide how resources are utilized.
Re:EU will require Apple to open up iMessage by hellojesus on Thursday March 02, 2023 @02:41PM (#35000812)
The aim is to find equilibriums though more signals and noise than any one authority could realize. The outcome is efficiency of resource allocation.
Re:EU will require Apple to open up iMessage by sangnoir on Thursday March 02, 2023 @12:52PM (#34999156)
> The whole point of market economies is to let people vote with their resources.

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?

Re:EU will require Apple to open up iMessage by bratwurst3000 on Thursday March 02, 2023 @01:40PM (#34999865)
Hehe some would say bad products wouldnt be sold for long but the truth is that most bad products are not gone because the market dictated it but because of regulations ;)
Re:EU will require Apple to open up iMessage by hellojesus on Thursday March 02, 2023 @02:35PM (#35000690)
Regulation is a useful tool when there is quantifiable harm to an involuntary third party. That is not the case here. People have an infinite amount of electronic communication tools and services from which to choose. These are all voluntary without negative externalities causing harm on individuals outside the conversation (or outside the site when relating to the cookie policy).
Re:EU will require Apple to open up iMessage by feanaro on Thursday March 02, 2023 @04:17PM (#35002207)
> People have an infinite amount of electronic communication tools and services from which to choose.

Due to network effects of communication tools, this is not really true.

Re:EU will require Apple to open up iMessage by hellojesus on Thursday March 02, 2023 @06:38PM (#35003637)
Network effects can be overcome locally, by talking with your contacts and getting them to move to a new app/communication mechanism. It takes time, but compelling arguments will win in the end.
Re:EU will require Apple to open up iMessage by areeh on Friday March 03, 2023 @07:00AM (#35008402)
I think one of the big missing pieces in your parent comment about choice and negative externalities has to do with this network effect and I do not think the argument that it can be overcome locally is a very compelling counter.
Re:EU will require Apple to open up iMessage by hellojesus on Friday March 03, 2023 @03:21PM (#35014534)
It certainly is a difficult thing to do, but we see it happen time and time again. TikTok is now the biggest app, and it was nowhere a few years ago. Same with things like Insta, What's app, Signal, etc.

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.

Re:EU will require Apple to open up iMessage by rootusrootus on Thursday March 02, 2023 @08:05PM (#35004440)
> Do you suppose market forces could have gotten rid of lead in paint or gasoline if regulations hadn't?

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.

Re:EU will require Apple to open up iMessage by kingkawn on Thursday March 02, 2023 @01:06PM (#34999369)
Many generations of people fought and died to not just let the monstrous assholes with resources decide everything.
Re:EU will require Apple to open up iMessage by hellojesus on Thursday March 02, 2023 @02:38PM (#35000766)
The market decides, which is a collection of signals from an amount of players that outweighs any one individual.

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?

Re:EU will require Apple to open up iMessage by kingkawn on Monday March 06, 2023 @08:34AM (#35040757)
Because it turns into an exploitation shit show incompatible with a stable prosperous society if we just satisfy your fetish for the perfect embodiment of abstractions like “the market.”
Re:EU will require Apple to open up iMessage by ultrarunner on Thursday March 02, 2023 @04:47PM (#35002555)
Well, maybe. Some fought for the same state that turned around and gave GM a whole ton of money. My boss got a couple PPP loans, and a new car. There might be some ebb and flow to the whims of those pulling the strings, but it sure looks like those who are close to them do alright.
Re:EU will require Apple to open up iMessage by DaiPlusPlus on Thursday March 02, 2023 @01:06PM (#34999375)
> Worst case is 49.9% of people suffer horribly under state enforced "social good".

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.

Re:EU will require Apple to open up iMessage by OrvalWintermute on Thursday March 02, 2023 @01:29PM (#34999708)
Apple seems to keep spam on iMessage fairly well controlled.

If anyone can do iMessage on any device, it is logical that these protections may weaken over time.

Re:EU will require Apple to open up iMessage by DaiPlusPlus on Thursday March 02, 2023 @01:32PM (#34999749)
I'll grant you that - but the proposed legislation isn't requiring Apple to allow iMessage users to receive unsolicited messages from external services.
Re:EU will require Apple to open up iMessage by sidlls on Thursday March 02, 2023 @09:31PM (#35005097)
It would require additional effort on Apple's part to keep third party tools' spam efforts at bay. At some point the cost of doing that isn't something Apple could justify, and at that time unsolicited messages absolutely will increase in volume.
Re:EU will require Apple to open up iMessage by prmoustache on Thursday March 02, 2023 @03:09PM (#35001253)
That changes nothing. I can't receive unsolicited messages on my xmpp and matrix accounts until I allow the contact invitation.

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.

Re:EU will require Apple to open up iMessage by danaris on Thursday March 02, 2023 @02:18PM (#35000447)
1) If it is prohibitively difficult (with what that means entirely defined by Apple) for them to fully support all features of iMessage to non-Apple users, and the law requires that other devices have full parity (I don't know if it does; the article is pretty short and detail-light), then Apple may have to remove features from iMessage even on Apple devices.

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

Re:EU will require Apple to open up iMessage by KiwiJohnno on Thursday March 02, 2023 @06:16PM (#35003449)
Sorry, but this is complete nonsense. 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.

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.

Re:EU will require Apple to open up iMessage by hellojesus on Thursday March 02, 2023 @06:41PM (#35003665)
> 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.

Re:EU will require Apple to open up iMessage by jrm4 on Friday March 03, 2023 @12:33PM (#35012671)
This is nitpicky. Fine. It does not require Apple to "build" something or to engage in additional work.
Re:EU will require Apple to open up iMessage by hellojesus on Friday March 03, 2023 @03:23PM (#35014557)
Agreed. It was nitpicky. But it still remains that the legislation removes a competitive advantage and possibly forces IP to be revealed.
Re:EU will require Apple to open up iMessage by jrm4 on Friday March 03, 2023 @04:22PM (#35015205)
Yes. That would be the point. I don't think anyone would meaningfully argue AGAINST the idea that it is "detrimental to Apple and their interests," which is literally all this means.
Re:EU will require Apple to open up iMessage by danaris on Thursday March 02, 2023 @07:00PM (#35003854)
> All apple have to do is release documentation on the iMessage protocol

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.

Re:EU will require Apple to open up iMessage by brokenmachine on Tuesday March 07, 2023 @11:18PM (#35065198)
>may be aspects of the service that Apple is unwilling to give away because they involve trade secrets

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.

Re:EU will require Apple to open up iMessage by jsmith99 on Thursday March 02, 2023 @01:11PM (#34999445)
Even the biggest fan of free markets agrees government need to prevent market failures, such as natural monopolies caused by network effects.
Re:EU will require Apple to open up iMessage by dragonwriter on Thursday March 02, 2023 @01:20PM (#34999559)
> Even the biggest fan of free markets agrees government need to prevent market failures, such as natural monopolies caused by network effects.

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

https://mises.org/wire/healthcare-and-market-failure

https://mises.org/library/response-market-failure-drones

Re:EU will require Apple to open up iMessage by hellojesus on Thursday March 02, 2023 @02:49PM (#35000935)
I clicked the first link, which argues that free markets are bad because central banking has failed.

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.

Re:EU will require Apple to open up iMessage by dragonwriter on Thursday March 02, 2023 @03:08PM (#35001232)
> I clicked the first link, which argues that free markets are bad because central banking has failed.

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.)

Re:EU will require Apple to open up iMessage by hellojesus on Thursday March 02, 2023 @06:43PM (#35003678)
Thanks. I skimmed through it and saw the core ideas. I thought your original comment was sarcasm. My bad.
Re:EU will require Apple to open up iMessage by int_19h on Thursday March 02, 2023 @03:42PM (#35001739)
Peter Thiel famously argued that when monopolies arise in a free market, it's "actually a good thing".
Re:EU will require Apple to open up iMessage by ClumsyPilot on Thursday March 02, 2023 @01:19PM (#34999543)
> Best case you get a almost as good outcome

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?

Re:EU will require Apple to open up iMessage by coxmichael on Thursday March 02, 2023 @03:07PM (#35001216)
In more political phraseology, that would be tyranny rather than anarchy (that is, without hierarchy)
Re:EU will require Apple to open up iMessage by freedomben on Thursday March 02, 2023 @04:22PM (#35002270)
> 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.

Re:EU will require Apple to open up iMessage by ultrarunner on Thursday March 02, 2023 @04:44PM (#35002509)
Of your list, the party that comes to mind as a salient example most often is the state.
Re:EU will require Apple to open up iMessage by jrm4 on Friday March 03, 2023 @12:32PM (#35012646)
The whole point of market economies is to let people freely trade goods and services, but has absolutely NOTHING to do with the silly fantasy of "consumption equals governance." That's textbook nerd BS that just doesn't play out well in real life. You need direct governance, you can't expect a tool designed for one thing to do another.