In the case of Bell, the universal lines already existed, the problem was that Bell owned them all and wouldn't let anyone else use them. That was a "monopoly" so there was an argument for breaking it up so that everyone could use the lines.
In the case of iMessage (and others), the creators are deliberately building out many different incompatible "lines", and not letting anyone else use those lines. And now people are coming along and saying because it's not a "monopoly", we can't do anything about that. But the real goal was the same in both cases - making universal communication possible. That's what we're all frustrated about here, and the fact that there are dozens of apps trying to wall off competitors is part of the cause of that. Apple is a target because iMessage is the largest such "private line" in the United States.
What gets a bit lost in the conversation for iMessage is that the protocol/infra and implementation get merged into one. This is approached in many countries for telcos by splitting the companies providing the lines from the companies providing service on top of them. It's not perfect, but it's better than previous approaches.
Any service online is under no obligation to allow for widespread interpoperation - that would be madness.
Lol, "madness". The Digital Services Act in the EU would like a word.
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2023-12-06/apple-ime...
Messages on iPhone is interoperable with any other mobile device - it supports SMS!
and isn't RCS support coming too?
Interestingly enough, one of the outcomes of that case was IE for the Mac.
This is one messaging app on one brand of phone. Nothing stops you from using another phone, or multiple or other messaging apps. And messaging apps aren’t restricted by a “default” in quite the same way a web browser is. I have friends on WhatsApp and Signal and Instagram and I message them all without any appreciable difference in effort.