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Well, yes. It's a great reason to not let businesses decide on these things, because their petty interpretation will always override a communal solution. Once y

Well, yes. It's a great reason to not let businesses decide on these things, because their petty interpretation will always override a communal solution. Once you reach Apple's scale, you shouldn't expect to start replacing stuff like SMS with a proprietary alternative and get away with it.

hyperbovine 3y ago
Maybe Apple’s “scale” is because its users do not enjoy being shackled to crappy SMS?
- talldayo 3y ago
  Maybe so; it doesn't really matter when you're looking at damages. It's Apple's job to solve interoperability with their own platform, and not only have they failed to provide SMS-levels of interop, they actively work against it to promote ulterior products. It's exactly the sort of anticompetitive bundling that harms the market without improving competition. Maybe Ma Bell's success was in-part due to their free long-distance calls. It's kinda moot speculation when you look at their top-down business strategy though.
  - paulmd 3y ago
    Nobody provides SMS levels of interop on unrestricted internet messaging platforms because the experience sucks. Running the IM equivalent of an open SMTP relay is a ghastly experience for users. You literally have to gatekeep because the alternative is going back to circa-2000 levels of spam. Deep down you know exactly what would happen because we’ve all lived it with spam voice calls again recently - we’ve been trying to reach you about your car’s warranty… Destroying a working, positive experience on the apple platform and dragging it down to 2000s level is the explicit goal for a lot of people. The pain is the point - not to bring android up but simply to tear things down and walk away.
    - doctorpangloss 3y ago
      > You literally have to gatekeep because the alternative is going back to circa-2000 levels of spam. The vast majority of spam is explicitly permitted by Google. What are you talking about? Do you not use e-mail? They have a Promotions tab, they could make spam - that is, marketing emails - go away in an afternoon, if they wanted to. They just don't, because those same companies are Google Ads customers.
      - paulmd 3y ago
        > The vast majority of spam is explicitly permitted by Google. What are you talking about? It is certainly not lmao - try sending mail to google from your own smtp server on your own doma Seeing some spam occasionally doesn’t mean the vast majority isn’t being rej > They have a Promotions tab, they could make spam - that is, marketing emails - go away in an afternoon, if they wanted to. opting into newsletters is explicitly not spam, so either you don’t understand the basics of being on the internet or you’re arguing in bad faith. Which is probably also implied by the “I saw a spam once therefore google runs an open SMTP relay” take honestly. You know that’s not true either. We both know you know. Why are you doing this? again: Google doesn’t provide your desired standard of openness either, in their own oligopolistic fiefs/gatekeeper domains like gmail. And everyone understand why it’s a bad idea. Forced open interop is an unworkable idea and forcing an unworkable idea on iMessage is the whole goal. Flooding iMessage with spam 2000s-style by forcing an “open relay” into the system is the whole point, whether you realize it or not. Just like forcing “choice of browser” was never about giving users freedom either - but about wiping away the last counterbalance against chrome’s dominance/monopoly in the browser market. Hence the flood of shit like web integrity and adtech ever since.
        eropple 3y ago
        > opting into newsletters is explicitly not spam C'mon. Signing up for a store to buy a thing doesn't grant permission to bother me with a newsletter, you very frequently just can't opt out until they've sent you something. That's the "I'm not touching you" of compliance and spam-in-spirit should have a mudhole stomped into it--and yet does not.
  - riffic 3y ago
    the only "free long-distance" calling on Ma Bell was with a blue box.
    - deleted 3y ago
      [deleted]
- pseudalopex 3y ago
  Apple users would be less shackled to crappy SMS if Apple put iMessage on Android.
- mfuzzey 3y ago
  Why shackled to SMS? I don't have an iPhone don't use iMessager and haven't sent a SMS in the past 10 years. Everything these days is What'sApp / Telegram / Signal
sureIy 3y ago
I’m torn on this. Where does it stop? Must Apple open up every single part of the phone because of their scale? Should it allow access to the raw data of FaceID? Does it have to provide an alternative to OS notifications? Does every single feature have to be cross platform? I’d argue that a much more urgent matter is opening up “accounts” so that they can never lock and delete my online data without recourse. This is way more important than iMessage on Android, to which there are plenty of options already.
Jtsummers 3y ago
Apple didn't replace SMS. It is still there on every iPhone, and they expanded SMS reach for iPhone users who have other devices like iPad and macOs systems. In what universe do you exist where SMS was removed?
- talldayo 3y ago
  HN tells me that there's only one more step left after embracing and extending. Apple didn't make some mistake putting iMessage and SMS in the same app, they want you reliant on their service so that SMS seems (rightfully) poor by comparison. There would be nothing wrong with that if Apple wasn't equally as miserly with that power as the carriers they want to valiantly protest against. I'm no fan of cell carriers either, but now that we see Apple's end-goal I don't think their cause is righteous at all. In the friendliest of interpretations, they are a competing alternative enabled by disproportionate first-party integration on Apple's behalf. It doesn't take long to extrapolate their motives for deliberately neglecting cross-platform interoperability to bolster their market presence. If it harms the market, prevents fair competition, and doesn't benefit the general public, there is no rational reason to let iMessage persist the way it is today.
  - deleted 3y ago
    [deleted]
  - threeseed 3y ago
    Apple never got rid of SMS. And there has been no embrace or extend. All they did was put an optional message service in the same app. One that isn’t even the most popular making it strange to say there is no competition.
    - FireBeyond 3y ago
      > All they did was put an optional message service in the same app. They did a bit more than that. There were the glory days that if you ever left the Apple ecosystem, but iMessage ever had an awareness of your number, no other iMessage users could reach you until or unless you did some incantations that Apple didn't make obvious, ideally from an Apple device (that you may not own anymore), to allow your friends to keep sending you even green bubble messages? I know multiple people who had to go to Apple stores to try to do this process.
mopenstein 3y ago
Why let the businesses create anything at all? Why not regulate the creation of everything?
- talldayo 3y ago
  Better question; why allow them access to the market if their only intention is to abuse it? Apple can create whatever they want, but they're going to get the scrutiny they deserve. iMessage should be an on-ramp to better communications for everyone; instead it's become the flaming symbol of Apple's deliberate negligence. This is absolutely the point regulators should be stepping in and ensuring Apple isn't headed down an anti-consumer pathway that ensures market harm.
edanm 3y ago
If you don't "let business decide on these things", the result isn't better more communal solutions getting made, the result is no solutions getting made because they're not worth making for the business.
- talldayo 3y ago
  You'd be a lot closer to the truth if Apple didn't spend the last 10 years of their corporate existence resisting message standardization like it was a plague. There were alternatives, even solutions Apple found acceptable, but they refused to adopt them.

hyperbovine 3y ago

Maybe Apple’s “scale” is because its users do not enjoy being shackled to crappy SMS?

talldayo 3y ago
Maybe so; it doesn't really matter when you're looking at damages. It's Apple's job to solve interoperability with their own platform, and not only have they failed to provide SMS-levels of interop, they actively work against it to promote ulterior products. It's exactly the sort of anticompetitive bundling that harms the market without improving competition. Maybe Ma Bell's success was in-part due to their free long-distance calls. It's kinda moot speculation when you look at their top-down business strategy though.
- paulmd 3y ago
  Nobody provides SMS levels of interop on unrestricted internet messaging platforms because the experience sucks. Running the IM equivalent of an open SMTP relay is a ghastly experience for users. You literally have to gatekeep because the alternative is going back to circa-2000 levels of spam. Deep down you know exactly what would happen because we’ve all lived it with spam voice calls again recently - we’ve been trying to reach you about your car’s warranty… Destroying a working, positive experience on the apple platform and dragging it down to 2000s level is the explicit goal for a lot of people. The pain is the point - not to bring android up but simply to tear things down and walk away.
  - doctorpangloss 3y ago
    > You literally have to gatekeep because the alternative is going back to circa-2000 levels of spam. The vast majority of spam is explicitly permitted by Google. What are you talking about? Do you not use e-mail? They have a Promotions tab, they could make spam - that is, marketing emails - go away in an afternoon, if they wanted to. They just don't, because those same companies are Google Ads customers.
    - paulmd 3y ago
      > The vast majority of spam is explicitly permitted by Google. What are you talking about? It is certainly not lmao - try sending mail to google from your own smtp server on your own doma Seeing some spam occasionally doesn’t mean the vast majority isn’t being rej > They have a Promotions tab, they could make spam - that is, marketing emails - go away in an afternoon, if they wanted to. opting into newsletters is explicitly not spam, so either you don’t understand the basics of being on the internet or you’re arguing in bad faith. Which is probably also implied by the “I saw a spam once therefore google runs an open SMTP relay” take honestly. You know that’s not true either. We both know you know. Why are you doing this? again: Google doesn’t provide your desired standard of openness either, in their own oligopolistic fiefs/gatekeeper domains like gmail. And everyone understand why it’s a bad idea. Forced open interop is an unworkable idea and forcing an unworkable idea on iMessage is the whole goal. Flooding iMessage with spam 2000s-style by forcing an “open relay” into the system is the whole point, whether you realize it or not. Just like forcing “choice of browser” was never about giving users freedom either - but about wiping away the last counterbalance against chrome’s dominance/monopoly in the browser market. Hence the flood of shit like web integrity and adtech ever since.
      - eropple 3y ago
        > opting into newsletters is explicitly not spam C'mon. Signing up for a store to buy a thing doesn't grant permission to bother me with a newsletter, you very frequently just can't opt out until they've sent you something. That's the "I'm not touching you" of compliance and spam-in-spirit should have a mudhole stomped into it--and yet does not.
- riffic 3y ago
  the only "free long-distance" calling on Ma Bell was with a blue box.
  - deleted 3y ago
    [deleted]
pseudalopex 3y ago
Apple users would be less shackled to crappy SMS if Apple put iMessage on Android.
mfuzzey 3y ago
Why shackled to SMS? I don't have an iPhone don't use iMessager and haven't sent a SMS in the past 10 years. Everything these days is What'sApp / Telegram / Signal

sureIy 3y ago

I’m torn on this. Where does it stop? Must Apple open up every single part of the phone because of their scale? Should it allow access to the raw data of FaceID? Does it have to provide an alternative to OS notifications? Does every single feature have to be cross platform? I’d argue that a much more urgent matter is opening up “accounts” so that they can never lock and delete my online data without recourse. This is way more important than iMessage on Android, to which there are plenty of options already.

Jtsummers 3y ago

Apple didn't replace SMS. It is still there on every iPhone, and they expanded SMS reach for iPhone users who have other devices like iPad and macOs systems. In what universe do you exist where SMS was removed?

talldayo 3y ago
HN tells me that there's only one more step left after embracing and extending. Apple didn't make some mistake putting iMessage and SMS in the same app, they want you reliant on their service so that SMS seems (rightfully) poor by comparison. There would be nothing wrong with that if Apple wasn't equally as miserly with that power as the carriers they want to valiantly protest against. I'm no fan of cell carriers either, but now that we see Apple's end-goal I don't think their cause is righteous at all. In the friendliest of interpretations, they are a competing alternative enabled by disproportionate first-party integration on Apple's behalf. It doesn't take long to extrapolate their motives for deliberately neglecting cross-platform interoperability to bolster their market presence. If it harms the market, prevents fair competition, and doesn't benefit the general public, there is no rational reason to let iMessage persist the way it is today.
- deleted 3y ago
  [deleted]
- threeseed 3y ago
  Apple never got rid of SMS. And there has been no embrace or extend. All they did was put an optional message service in the same app. One that isn’t even the most popular making it strange to say there is no competition.
  - FireBeyond 3y ago
    > All they did was put an optional message service in the same app. They did a bit more than that. There were the glory days that if you ever left the Apple ecosystem, but iMessage ever had an awareness of your number, no other iMessage users could reach you until or unless you did some incantations that Apple didn't make obvious, ideally from an Apple device (that you may not own anymore), to allow your friends to keep sending you even green bubble messages? I know multiple people who had to go to Apple stores to try to do this process.

mopenstein 3y ago

Why let the businesses create anything at all? Why not regulate the creation of everything?

talldayo 3y ago
Better question; why allow them access to the market if their only intention is to abuse it? Apple can create whatever they want, but they're going to get the scrutiny they deserve. iMessage should be an on-ramp to better communications for everyone; instead it's become the flaming symbol of Apple's deliberate negligence. This is absolutely the point regulators should be stepping in and ensuring Apple isn't headed down an anti-consumer pathway that ensures market harm.

edanm 3y ago

If you don't "let business decide on these things", the result isn't better more communal solutions getting made, the result is no solutions getting made because they're not worth making for the business.

talldayo 3y ago
You'd be a lot closer to the truth if Apple didn't spend the last 10 years of their corporate existence resisting message standardization like it was a plague. There were alternatives, even solutions Apple found acceptable, but they refused to adopt them.