FaceTime has convinced pretty much everyone in our globally distributed family to buy iPads (for the most part). These are all people familiar with Skype but the FaceTime experience is a huge win. More recently some of us have tried hangout but in the end it was back to FaceTime.
I would like to see both open, but I can also see why Apple, who do make money on the devices, want to sell more devices.
My friends and I used Kik for a while when they used Blackberry and Anroid phones. I was the only iPhone user at first, but once another friend got an iPhone it became much easier to convince the rest of them how much better it was for all of us to use iPhones. Apple is better off holding out and letting their product sell themselves, and iMessage and Facetime will keep them locked in once they're users.
Rewarding Apple for that kind of behaviour is not good for anyone in the long run. When you're tied to Apple they can charge anything they want, and cripple or remove any features they want. I'd say people are bringing it upon themselves, but at a certain market saturation they're forcing it on everyone.
All corporations do this in one way or another, so this is a generic anti-corporate argument. In the case of Apple, it is clearly irrelevant since they have such a tiny market share.
I love it when people throw in "clearly" to their claim. Despite your claim - it isn't "clearly irrelevant".
if their market share is so tiny, why is anyone reading this story on HN?
in the US, iOS isn't irrelevant, Apple has 40% smartphone market share and rising.
People are reading this because despite a small market share, Apple is more successful than any other PC, Tablet, or Phone maker.
It's easy to point to rising market share less than one month after an annual product release. If it wasn't rising at that point they'd be in Blackberry territory. Typically, Apple is presented as having a losing strategy, and the current market share in the US is regarded as a anomaly that will quickly be corrected as 'Good Enough' Android phones such as the Nexus series or Galaxy S4 are recognized as being equivalent.
I love iMessage and Facetime. But neither is tying my to Apple or convincing my friends to switch to Apple. If they were open I as an Apple customer would use them more and be happier.