Google argues iMessage should be regulated by the EU's Digital Markets Act • Hacker News Board

Re: Google argues iMessage should be regulated by the EU's Digital Markets Act

#101

Post by ericmay » Sat, Nov 11, 2023, 10:33 PM UTC

xigoi wrote: post #81

ericmay wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Probably not. It’s better to think of this as Google trying to go after Apple to the sole benefit of Google than it is to think of this as “if Google wins this it will create lots of third party challengers”. Network effects also aren’t really all that bad. Would you want 15 apps that you have to rotate through to communicate to different people with, all with different features and capabilities? Probably not. You’d…

I'd rather have 15 different open protocols that someone could create an universal app for than 7 different proprietary protocols that each require you to have a specific app.

I think what you and others are confused by is that you will be required to have many specific apps regardless of whether the protocols are “open” as you do now because the companies building the apps will always build proprietary features to get you to use their specific app, otherwise we would just coalesce around one messaging app and most will lose a lot of the money they are currently making.

There is nothing stopping anyone from using open protocols or different messaging apps today.

What’s so frustrating about Google’s attempt to leverage lobbyists to handicap Apple is that customers did coalesce around an app: iMessage, and all of this talk about “open protocols” is just marketing. The protocols you want to use are already here and already open!

Re: Google argues iMessage should be regulated by the EU's Digital Markets Act

#102

Post by xigoi » Sat, Nov 11, 2023, 10:45 PM UTC

ericmay wrote: post #101

xigoi wrote: post #81

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'd rather have 15 different open protocols that someone could create an universal app for than 7 different proprietary protocols that each require you to have a specific app.

I think what you and others are confused by is that you will be required to have many specific apps regardless of whether the protocols are “open” as you do now because the companies building the apps will always build proprietary features to get you to use their specific app, otherwise we would just coalesce around one messaging app and most will lose a lot of the money they are currently making. There is nothing st…

Unfortunately, you can only use the existing open protocols if other people are using them. Forcing the platforms that are actually being used to open their protocols would solve this issue.

Re: Google argues iMessage should be regulated by the EU's Digital Markets Act

#103

Post by ericmay » Sun, Nov 12, 2023, 9:34 AM UTC

xigoi wrote: post #102

ericmay wrote: post #101

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think what you and others are confused by is that you will be required to have many specific apps regardless of whether the protocols are “open” as you do now because the companies building the apps will always build proprietary features to get you to use their specific app, otherwise we would just coalesce around one messaging app and most will lose a lot of the money they are currently making. There is nothing st…

Unfortunately, you can only use the existing open protocols if other people are using them. Forcing the platforms that are actually being used to open their protocols would solve this issue.

Sure… but we have XML and JSON and YAML and…

“Open” is a nice idea but doesn’t work in practice here which is why no matter what we have many chat apps and poor cross-compatibility because companies building these apps don’t want it. And again, we already have these and they are clearly inferior.