How ridiculous. A big reason I buy Apple products is because of the walled garden. This feels like Europeans interjecting theirselves into my personal life and personal opinions. Hopefully Apple decides to just drop iMessage support for Europe instead of ruining a great product that Americans want to keep.
EU will require Apple to open up iMessage (2022)
371–380 of 645 posts
Re: EU will require Apple to open up iMessage (2022)
#372This sounds nice, but when you really think about the consequences it really is not. Isn't this going to kill features that only some apps have or offer? What if one day Signal, Telegram or WhatsApp want to implement something "different" that could make messaging better but this policy is making things harder to implement because it would be impossible to make it interoperate with other messaging apps? I don't get w…
I think it's more it's an SMS replacement or extension, which is supposed to be an open protocol, and they're not opening up the API to support the additional extended features (which is something out of Balmer/Gates era embrace and extend playbook, "we'll extend JavaScript, but you'll need IE to use any websites using the extended features and the site features will be broken without it" which is an anti-competitive practice that breaks what are supposed to be open platform independent protocols). Do something new, sure, extend features of an open protocol, sure, but if you're going to communicate with other Messaging platforms as a feature, you need to allow other messaging platforms the option to support those features on their end as well. Such as encryption, the ability to add emojis to a comment, full size attachments, etc.
Signal is actually removing SMS support, so problem solved on that end. But Signal can be installed on most platforms anyway, so if someone wanted to participate in the extra features, they always had the option of simply installing the client app. I can't install iMessage for Android if I want to be in the family group message and not see "Mom liked an image" 15 times. I personally dislike iPhones, but I still want to participate in my family's group chat, Apple doesn't give me that option. At least with WhatsApp, Signal or whatever what phone we have doesn't matter and we don't have to join the walled garden to use really basic features. I don't know what phone my friends in Signal group chats or WhatsApp use, because it doesn't matter.
If you're going to bridge different platforms, allow the other platforms to update to support it. It is exclusionary. Apple does this with FaceTime, I have my family install Duo/Meet on their Apple phones because I have to explain to them I don't have an Apple device for it, or if I do, its my work machine. At least that's a little less hostile than, "you can chat with your family but you're going to see activity you can't participate in".
Re: EU will require Apple to open up iMessage (2022)
#373Earlier quoted context omitted.
The fallacy HERE is "individual preferences accurately reflect collective good." 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.
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".
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 (2022)
#374I can't quite wrap my head around why people think that it is a good thing for Apple to be regulated into "opening up" (i.e. as opposed to being a "walled garden" platform). If I were an entrepreneur, and say that I wanted to fork a Unix-like OS so that I could make a cross-device OS for consumer hardware that I, too, make---shouldn't I have the right to program my OS to seamlessly integrate only with the apps and th…
Communication infrastructure is comparable to interstate networks, utilities, etc. If one is serving an appreciable percent of humanity expect to have your work, at least in part, and development avenues, decided for you by the governments representing the people you serve. I believe there is a philosophical misunderstanding here. Your users do not exist to serve your whims. Your projects continued existence is not a…
You misunderstand—it’s not a mystery that scale attracts regulation. The mystery is in why people think that OS engineers should have no freedom to make design choices. Where, even, is the disrespect in being a mere option amongst many? It’s not like Apple is forcing people to buy into their ecosystem.
And to your point about comms infrastructure—how does interoperability across messaging apps even look like, and does the idea even make sense? It’s not specified within the article.
Re: EU will require Apple to open up iMessage (2022)
#375Earlier quoted context omitted.
> [...] without actually realising that it is actually going to make things worse, that's what regulation does in most cases. 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 chemic…
> Regulations are the only tool that society has to prevent companies acting against the social good. 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 mes…
> People get to choose what is good for them, we're talking about tech products here.
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
Re: EU will require Apple to open up iMessage (2022)
#376Earlier quoted context omitted.
> Well, I respectfully disagree, I'm a firm believer that regulations disproportionately hurt 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 hea…
I did not make the case that ALL regulations must be erased to a zero, at all. I do believe that there must be a minimum of regulations that actually make everyone prosper and go along with each other. Unfortunately, regulating messaging so that anyone can have just a single app on their phone for that specific task is beyond unnecessary, but that's just my useless opinion I guess.
If it is a feature you consider "unneccesary", why argue against it so passionately? It just sounds like something you won't use.
Re: EU will require Apple to open up iMessage (2022)
#377In case this interest someone, I attended on Monday a workshop from the eu commission and wrote about it here https://carlschwan.eu/2023/03/02/digital-market-act-workshop...
Thank you. Actual insights with how things might be going forward is something nobody else here said so far.
Re: EU will require Apple to open up iMessage (2022)
#378Earlier quoted context omitted.
> Regulations are the only tool that society has to prevent companies acting against the social good. 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 mes…
It only targets big "platform providers" not startups. It even levels the playing field for those startups. People get so ideologically tangled that they just knee jerk.
> ideologically tangled
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.
Re: EU will require Apple to open up iMessage (2022)
#379This sounds nice, but when you really think about the consequences it really is not. Isn't this going to kill features that only some apps have or offer? What if one day Signal, Telegram or WhatsApp want to implement something "different" that could make messaging better but this policy is making things harder to implement because it would be impossible to make it interoperate with other messaging apps? I don't get w…
> "Isn't this going to kill features that only some apps have or offer?"
No, I don't think so. You can set a standard that defines a baseline of features that all interoperable messaging apps must support. But that doesn't preclude apps from offering additional functionality over and above the standard.
Re: EU will require Apple to open up iMessage (2022)
#380Earlier quoted context omitted.
The fallacy HERE is "individual preferences accurately reflect collective good." 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.
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".
> 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?