> But they absoltely didn't have them, and if they attempted to exercize them as if they had them, they'd be ignored, prevented, beaten up, or worse.
Our disagreement is that you think a right is something granted by the law and inability to excecise a right means you don't have it. A right simply means there is a valid justification to allow a person to do not do something. You can have a right and it can unjustly be taken from you. The government or even the fundamental rule of law exists in part to enable justice and justice exists beyond the confines of law and government. If it is just for a person to or not do something and there is a valid and reasonable explanation for that thing then it is justifiable and preventing or coercing a person to contradict that would be unjust therefore it is a right. If the law fails to codify a right then the law is unjust with that respect.
To put it differently, after a law is passed to recognize a right, people can ask for compensation for past injustices even though in the past the injustice was legal. This is because despite legality, a person had rights and due to a failure of law and society that right was not protected and damage was done.
> But you didn't discuss morals, you wrote "by what right or authority". Well, they have the right and the authority, so?
Well that is what I am challenging. The EU or governments in general don't have absolute authority over all things. In the case of EU and democratic governments there is a contract of law between the people and the government defining the authority of the government. I don't know EU law well but in the US the government has the right to regulate commerce which iMessage as a free app is excluded. In a free society, unless the government has explicit authority to regulate something it can't just restrict what you do, that's the whole point of liberty. I was genuinely asking what authority the EU had to regulate the activity of offering a free service to the public that doesn't involve hosting content, only transporting messages. This authority if legit would mean the EU can for example interfere in moderation decisions by sites like HN.
> Sorry, but if you come here to sell something, you better sell it on our terms and under EU laws. If you don't want to do that, you
But nothing is being sold, iMessage is a free app so your point is invalid.
> Also, you don't know what "consumers want" in general. Did you ask consumers if they want to keep Messages closed?
There are people who prefer a closed messaging ecosystem. For people who want a more open system there is Signal, Wire,Briar, Threema, All the Matrix clients,etc... there is no shortage of optiond and most of them are supported on the iPhone. So you and the EU don't care about open apps being available to the EU. You just want to force others to not have a closes messaging system.
You're the bully here.