This is one of those things which sounds great on the surface, but isn't going to work out like they assume it will. It just seems like it'll end up being SMS 2

This is one of those things which sounds great on the surface, but isn't going to work out like they assume it will. It just seems like it'll end up being SMS 2.0. For example Meta's Instagram chat doesn't even have feature parity across devices. Let alone into their other properties, so the idea that they'd be able to telegraph features into some interoperable standard isn't realistic, however I can imagine them slashing features until they meet the required level of interoperability. At its core the problem is that governments write tech legislation under the wrong assumption that these companies will take it then innovate from that point onwards - but that's not how it plays out. Developers aren't mind readers, so the moment the government says they're interested in legislating how some kind of service should be run, development freezes in wait of the final legislation (and if need be, any court cases that may stem from that legislation.) From this point development is focused on meeting the legislative requirements and the usually short timelines imposed by the EU (Because bugs never happen and testing is just something we do for lolz.) Depending on the wording of the legislation there are limited opportunities to differentiate the product and there is the constant risk that the EU interprets any new features as an attempt to circumvent the legislation. So the best thing to do is just put the product out to pasture. I'm also entirely of the mind that this is simply not needed. What is so hard in closing one chat app and opening another? The majority of people in the EU are using whatsapp, and new entrants are constant. This just seems like such a non-issue, especially as the mac notification system allows for immediate replies regardless of where the message came from, that is totally abstracted.