iMessage is the only messaging system free of spam, where sending spam gets your device banned from the network. Apple’s use of TPM attestations is mandatory to

iMessage is the only messaging system free of spam, where sending spam gets your device banned from the network. Apple’s use of TPM attestations is mandatory to sign in, and only the gaming console networks for PlayStation/Xbox/Switch have this. It raises the cost of spamming to a hundred dollars per estimated hundred messages (actual threshold may vary), which makes it unprofitable. This makes it highly appealing to users, and since no one else in the mobile market can secure their existing messaging network in this way, government-mandated regulation would create considerable harm to users if the flood of paid-by-spammers and data-scrapers and anticonsumer-trackers clamoring at the gates in Google’s regulatory complaint gain access. Is the cause of openness worth that harm to users? That is ultimately for regulators to decide, and it’s a critically-important decision for everyone that makes money from messaging. (Also, the inevitable STIR/SHAKEN requirement would likely end up requiring processor TPMs, secure attestation, and uniformly deanonymize all traffic on the ‘open’ system, accessible to ‘all’ OS boot+root images signed by corporate-registered signing certificates. I’d rather not see Google accelerate the modifiable computing apocalypse, but here we are.)