Apple's tight grip on iMessage spurs fresh calls for an antitrust probe | Hacker News Reader

Apple's tight grip on iMessage spurs fresh calls for an antitrust probe

wired.com

37 pointssmtp23 comments

I'm really surprised by the many comments feigning surprise at the view that Apple's actions in this case are anti-competitive.

Previously, Google was found liable of anti-competitive practices for only showing Google Shopping results in the carousel at the top of the search results page. The argument was that Google was abusing its dominant market position in search engines to gain a market advantage in comparison shopping services. As a result, Google was ordered to allow third-party comparison shopping services to integrate.

How is this different? The problem with iMessage is that it has that premium, native, and out-of-the-box OS integration including the SMS fallback. No other messaging app can compete with that.

Every other app needs to be a separate app that must be downloaded from the App Store. No other app can have the SMS fallback because iOS prohibits third-party SMS apps.

They are abusing their dominant market position in smartphones to gain a market advantage in messaging services. They have previously stated that they profit financially from a strong market position of iMessage, because that in turn boosts iPhone sales.

If Apple doesn't want to integrate third-party message services into iMessage and/or Messages, they are free to compete on even ground. They'd have to extract iMessage from the Messages app, change it to a non-preinstalled app that must be downloaded from the App Store, and remove the SMS fallback.

Can I get an antitrust probe for every other app that doesn't allow third party clients, too?

Hell, I remember getting banned back in the day from Snap for using the Windows Phone app.

I honestly don't understand the argument. I'm not saying there isn't one - but it's not as though any other tech company is clamoring to allow unauthorized third party access to their services.

Without a drastic overhaul across the entire industry around the definition of service providers "interface" and requirements around documentation, it'll just open an exciting new can of worms and pain for customers. Support will be hell, experiences that work seamless will be difficult to achieve.

Again - that's not to say it's a bad idea, it just seems like we'd need a real rethinking of how we're doing things as an industry. That could be good, or we end up with a tragedy of the commons.

> I honestly don't understand the argument. I'm not saying there isn't one - but it's not as though any other tech company is clamoring to allow unauthorized third party access to their services.

I think the argument is the bundling of iMessage in with SMS. Yes, there's lots of third-party chat services too, and yes, no other tech company is clamoring to allow unauthorized third party access either.

But iMessage gets to intercept and pretend to be SMS (or more accurately, iMessage exists to block the RCS your phone line always already had) and it's pre-installed, uninstallable, and with special access exclusive to apple, which is where I think the argument could land.

A case could be argued of iMessage + iPhone is really similar to the late 90s era Microsoft Windows + Internet Explorer, in that they both break Sherman Antitrust Act: Section 2, in very similar ways, for very similar reasons.

(to be clear, I don't think they'd win, but I could see a strong argument there)

You can disable iMessage altogether. Sure you can't uninstall it, but you can choose to simply not have it enabled on the phone: https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT203042

Basically no user would do this but it's not somehow magically forced on the user.

You could also disable internet explorer - the antitrust comes in when you pre-empt any competitive consumer choice by forcibly bundling the application, iirc.

iMessage is an entirely separate service. It’s inactive until you activate it. It costs nothing to not enable. My dad refused to turn it on until last year but his iCloud account functioned without issue so he wasn’t “punished” or dark patterned into turning it on.

Is the Camera app an antitrust issue too? Any bundled application?

Not an iPhone user, but if iMessage is also the sole permitted SMS client for iOS, how would you send or receive SMS messages when iMessage is disabled?

iMessage is a service. Messages is the SMS app, that will send iMessages to people who have it enabled.

Yes, because what the market lacks is competition in the messaging space. There are only what, a dozen other options, at least half of which support E2E encryption, audio/video, etc.

In the US, Apple holds 87% of the teen phone market and iMessage is bundled with the phone. You don't have to have 100% of a market to be a monopoly and Apple's policy of visually distinguishing users of iMessage from those using other platforms leverages peer pressure to ensure it continues to command the overwhelming majority of the teen market. Not sure how it is defensible to use minors developing social skills as a pattern for entrenching one's share of that market.

> In the US, Apple holds 87% of the teen phone market

So people who do not afford to buy a loaf of bread, bought an iPhone. I think the problem lies somewhere else.

"Daddy, i want an iPhone. Everyone has one". "Sorry, i don't pay 800 Euros for a toy to make phone calls and watch youtube"

The teen phone market is the market of teens with phones. Those below the poverty line and unable to eat are likely not part of this market (ie: don't give their kids phones).

Also, most of the benefit of iMessage is due to it being device locked (as in spammers have to burn through iPhones in order to bug people on it) and iOS integrations like apple pay, being able to send large photo and file attachments, FaceTime, etc.

What does it even mean for Android to support iMessage if receiving images and videos means getting a non-url link to an iCloud photo (or synchronously transferring GBs at delivery time)?

How often do you get SMS spam? There would be nothing wrong if Apple added a little "this person bought an iPhone" icon to certain conversations. You could use that to scrutinize unknown numbers if you want. You don't need to have a crippled chat experience just to make that distinction.

Also, you have to synchronously transfer GB when you watch the video anyway. How do you think iPhones play videos?

Also who is paying for all this? iMessage is not a free service

Look at all the other free, premium messaging apps: WhatsApp, messenger, even Snapchat can do video conferencing. It doesn't cost that much to run a chat app. The wealthiest company in the world can afford to open up their API

I don't think most of these top-level commenters get it. The issue isn't just that they don't allow external clients, it's that they privilege iMessage with special API access that other messaging clients don't have, prevent interoperability with other phones by explicitly not supporting RCS, and forcibly bundle the iMessage service, pre-empting consumer choice and suppressing healthy competition by abusing a oligopolistic market position. This is anti-trust 101.

I still don't get why Apple doesn't get hit with antitrust by not installing several messaging apps at start time, and the user gets to decide which one is the default, the same as Microsoft with browsers

MS does not install multiple browsers.. the issue in that trial was special API access and blocking out competitors. There are plenty of competing message apps in the app store

Next we should launch an anti-trust probe into McDonald's burgers.

And force coke to share their recipe

Nah. They should force coke to allow anyone who asks to put random stuff into coke vending machines.

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