At the end of the day, this product is taking money for using Apple Services with no recompense to Apple. It won't last.
Apple should have added an iMessage client to Android (and charged for it) long, long, long ago, but it doesn't change the ethics problem here.
(This is the downside to the "just pay for it with hardware" model people always love rather than paying subscription fees.)
In reality, RCS is practically a Google service at this point, and we don’t know a damn thing about how that is going to affect interoperability since the carriers have more or less outsourced the service to Google.
https://9to5mac.com/2023/11/16/apple-confirms-rcs-messages-w...
To illustrate the issue, imagine apple added support for "encrypted RCS" that was just iMessage's message blob stuck in an RCS blob (this is essentially how google's encrypted messaging solution works). Would you be ok with that being presented as "encrypted RCS"?
It's less about the background color and more about the endless series of interoperability paper cuts that exist with green bubbles. Will my reaction emoji come through as intended? Will my shared media get downsampled to feature phone quality? Will referencing the person's name in chat work the same? etc etc etc.
Interop is always a pain, but the sooner Apple can be forced into making any concessions the better.
It would help if Google wasn't a complete joke in the messaging space though. As much as I want iMessage interop with Android users, I have no faith or trust in any Google-based messaging app or initiative. Fool me once, shame on you; fool me dozens of times ... well I'd be an idiot to trust Google messaging again.
The fact that a huge number of perfectly good third party chat apps exist and yet most Apple users prefer iMessage is a huge testament to iMessage just being a really well made product. I wouldn't put up with the obnoxious interop and lockin issues if it weren't!
Recently Google Messages started automatically translating the shitty little 'So-and-so hearted "<previous message>"' SMS messages Apple sends out from iMessage into reactions as well.
It's genuinely quite good. I prefer it over Signal when I know the other person has an Android too.
To be clear, I don't have a dog in this race. I have an iPhone but barely use iMessages.
I wish companies wouldn't see it like this. I'm not going to speak on this one specifically, but the other one (Beeper Cloud) "makes Apple money" in that i'm more likely to buy into the Apple ecosystem. Ie normally i'm wanting to get out, because Apple likes to play all-or-nothing with the features that i buy from them. As someone who has an Apple watch, phone, laptop, tv, tv+, airpods.. yet works on Linux & PC, it makes me want to switch away from Apple if i can find better hardware.
Beeper lets me get _some of the features i pay for_, which makes me not want to switch.
Makes me sad that so many companies have this view of direct income or piss off. Secondary benefits are real imo, and it's what i personally want to buy. Apple feels actively hostile to me, and it makes me want to leave.
Remember when Apple promised that Facetime would be based on SIP and would be interoperable? Neither does anyone. I hope that someone opens this Pandora's box also and gives it to every grandma on the planet before Apple has a chance to ban it.
What if someone reverse engineered Twitter's services and built a separate client and tried to monetize it. What would Twitter do?
What if someone reverse engineered Reddit's services and built a separate client and tried to monetize it. What would Reddit do?
What if someone reverse engineered Instagram's services and built a separate client and tried to monetize it. What would Instagram do?
Do we provide recompense to YCombinator for using hackernews?
Yes. Asking this question is original content. My reply is additional. Those reading this thread are community members.
All of this drives the visibility of new YC batch application kickoffs. Ultimately, YC founders, and some of these early leads result in big investment returns.
Apple's "free" services are all dependent on you having bought apple products. When you buy a device, the "profit" on the hardware (the oft reference BoM only cost) also pays for the software development, the services, etc.
Claiming that anyone should be able to use those services because they're "free" is like saying anyone should be able to get free service at Toyota garages because Toyota does free service for people who bought a Toyota vehicle.
Personally, I think the answer is "no", we should not allow that sort of thing. Profit is not the most important thing in the world, by far.
Your car analogy falls flat, as is the case with most car analogies. No one would expect to get free service at any garage, and that is unrelated to the topic at hand. You can go to any garage, and they're mostly not model specific; even when they are, there are plenty of third-party alternatives. (And this is why locking down car hardware/software such that only the manufacturer can provide service is a garbage practice that we should legally disallow.)
Running a service costs money.
That money has to come from somewhere.
Google makes that money by spying on people and using that for ads.
Apple makes that money by selling hardware.
You're saying that both companies should be required to provide the services they render, but apple's model of paying for it by selling hardware should be banned.
Also, go talk to someone who has bought a new car, and ask them how much their servicing costs. If they go to their manufacturer's service centers the regular services are free for the first few years, but if they go to an unrelated mechanic it costs money.
For the same reason that if you buy a game for xbox, and then when you later buy a playstation you can't turn around and demand that MS port the various xbox services to the playstation, or a publisher port an xbox game to playstation.