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If Apple stopped using their iMessage-noninteroperability to dissuade consumers (via network effects, degraded quality of images, etc) from trying other mobile

by sigmar 3y ago

If Apple stopped using their iMessage-noninteroperability to dissuade consumers (via network effects, degraded quality of images, etc) from trying other mobile OS platforms , wouldn't that also help any third party that wanted to challenge Apple and Google's dominance?

ericmay 3y ago
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 build some protocol on top to make that easier. But then someone says hey you need to open up your protocol and support my protocol and on and on we go. The crux of this story and most similar stories is that Apple went and made the best product and it’s so good that others can’t compete with it. If the opposite were true we’d just have people battling it out like we used to with video game consoles. Instead we have gigantic multi-hundred billion $ companies attacking Apple’s products and services with big government tools.
- xigoi 3y ago
  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.
  - repelsteeltje 3y ago
    That's off course the point Mike Masnick (of TechDirt fame) has been making: https://knightcolumbia.org/content/protocols-not-platforms-a-technological-approach-to-free-speech https://knightcolumbia.org/content/protocols-not-platforms-a...
  - ericmay 3y ago
    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!
    - xigoi 3y ago
      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.
      - ericmay 3y ago
        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.

by sigmar 3y ago

ericmay 3y ago

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 build some protocol on top to make that easier. But then someone says hey you need to open up your protocol and support my protocol and on and on we go. The crux of this story and most similar stories is that Apple went and made the best product and it’s so good that others can’t compete with it. If the opposite were true we’d just have people battling it out like we used to with video game consoles. Instead we have gigantic multi-hundred billion $ companies attacking Apple’s products and services with big government tools.

xigoi 3y ago
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.
- repelsteeltje 3y ago
  That's off course the point Mike Masnick (of TechDirt fame) has been making: https://knightcolumbia.org/content/protocols-not-platforms-a-technological-approach-to-free-speech https://knightcolumbia.org/content/protocols-not-platforms-a...
- ericmay 3y ago
  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!
  - xigoi 3y ago
    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.
    - ericmay 3y ago
      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.