EU is going to require interoperability between messaging platforms

This one is less political and focuses on tech specifics, and this outlet actually talked to a parliament representative whom they are quoting.

Isn’t it… the opposite of a blow to Apple? If there interoperability, why would I ever use anything than my phone’s default messaging app? (Especially if E2E encryption is a requirement, which it looks like it is)

This is just regulatory capture cementing the OS owners above app developers.

Agreed, this seems like good and sensible legislation. Imagine having multiple telephone systems, or "internets".

It is also really annoying for those of us who like the fact that canceling is easy, and that I can count on it being easy. At least make it so that the choice of merchant should be the user, not the app developer.

From TFA:

> “The first basic messaging features will be user-to-user messages, video and voice calls, as well as basic file transfer (photos, videos), and then over time, more features such as group chats will come,” noted Schwab. “Everything must be end-to-end encrypted.”

(emphasis mine)

End to end encrypted messaging is not incompatible with interoperability.

I’d be surprised if this isn’t what happens

I don’t think apps will need to implement each others’ features. Rather, apps will need to expose external APIs so that others could implement their functionality if desired.

Microsoft having to document SMB protocol & to an extend Active Directory protocols after losing the legal fight with Samba project[1] set forth a fairly hopeful future to me, a what might be.

SMB is basically a worst case of difficult to tame protocols. A sea of ancient crufty bizarre interlocking protocols, which Samba had already done good work reversing. But after enormous enormous bad blood, bad press, and a nearly billion dollar EU antitrust fine looming, Microsft went & did the not-immoral(court mandated thing & documented the protocol & stopped anti-competitive cutting out others. Now hypothetically others could come and participate too.

The idea that every app does messaging perfectly is indeed dubious. But the iMessage reducing outsiders to bit players, shunned, with shit experiences & not allowed to improve, is exactly the sort of monopolization anti-trust hellscape that seems like is getting turned back here.

Fear over imperfection to me is way way way way down the chain of concerns to the blatantly anti-competitive, ever-isolating, closed off intranets of proprietary, big player apps engaged in high stakes vicious anti-competitive practices, like Apple is so notoriously & vicuously known for.

It might not got smooth at first but progress will be possible & things will improve quickly from there. Market forces can reassert themselves, once interioeration begins. It's gonna be great. Dont let a fear of openness & love of the giant obstruct us for yet more decades, please. The future & possibility is too valuable to squander, too valuable to let us be divided & sundered like we have been by these vast duopolies & isolated fragmented partial un-inter-networks.

[1] https://fsfe.org/news/2011/news-20110525-01.en.html

wechat isn't used that much in europe, so they will simply ignore it and dont do any business in europe.

I can see other non european companies doing the same, and I'm not totally sure the outcome is in the best interest of the people. But time will tell, let's wait before we jump to conclusions.

Plenty of interoperable encryption systems, they'd just have to use and support one or more such as GPG, PGP, IPSec, etc.[1].

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Public-key_cryptography

It wont break it. You can send and receive the messages. To decrypt it, you will need the same app as the sender used. Basically how it works with email. If you pgp encrypt the message and the receiver only has smime at the moment, they wont be able to read your message.

This .eu thing is about platforms providing an api to connect and exchange data. It's not about what data etc can and cannot be used.

this is not fair in the slightest. At worst this will make for a fascinating and insightful experiment that will inform many future policy decisions

HN: all these closed silos are bad, they should be open

EU: mandates that at least a part of the silos such as messaging should be open

HN: no, not like that

It’s much easier to understand when you recognize that practically none of the big tech companies are European, and their own tax laws have been weaponized by member states to allow foreign companies to extract capital while paying little in taxes. What they’d like is for more European companies to have a better chance in the market, but they can’t compete without regulatory assistance.

It actually doesn’t matter whether GDPR, messenger interoperability, standardized charger plugs, open payment processing, etc. have the stated benefits for consumers because they have the intended benefit for government.