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Comment by latexr | Hacker News Reader

> Why not give everyone the ability to securely communicate?

Because their message isn’t “we offer privacy to everyone in the world” but “we offer privacy to our customers”.

But they don't because when their own customers communicate with others customers the conversation is no longer private and if they aren't sufficiently technically knowledgeable then their own customers might not even know it's not secure.

It would be if they were on iPhones :) Apple's not a non-profit. There's money to be made selling privacy to those who care, and Tim's on the job.

http://gs.statcounter.com/os-market-share/mobile/worldwide

Funny thing is Apple's competitors don't make money. Apple has ~50% of all smartphone revenue and 87% of the world's total smartphone profit share - iPhone X alone was 35% of global profit share with, to your point, only 22% of the market. Less, even, my data shows 19% of shipments most recently. Samsung is next in line off the back of approximately equal shipment volumes. Everyone else effectively breaks even or loses money. [1]

I'd say Apple's got this one figured out.

[1] https://www.forbes.com/sites/chuckjones/2018/03/02/apple-con...

Money doesn't matter, you don't get it. When only 1 in 5 phones is an iphone then keeping imessage.. you know what, I'm not wasting the effort.

I do get it, my argument was that money is the only thing that matters. Their goal isn't to secure everyone's communication, it's to maximize profits. They're doing that by saying if you both care about privacy, we have a one-stop-shop that'll get you taken care of, but it's gonna cost ya - and your friends. It creates an implicit pressure for others to get on the bandwagon driving up sales.

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