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Comment by rglullis | Hacker News Reader

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I support the idea that Apple should be allowed to keep it exclusive. I think it makes the experience of using their products worse, but that's their prerogative and the government shouldn't step in to intervene. Signal, WhatsApp, Discord, and others are all available to fill in the gap, so this isn't a monopoly case except insofar as a certain segment of the US population has an irrational reaction to blue bubbles.

I support the fact that messaging should be interoperable and accessible by any client application.

I want applications like Beeper to succeed because I’m totally fed up to be forced to use 3 or 4 messaging applications. I’m fed up to not be able to join Messenger groups because I don’t trust Meta enough to install their app.

Instant messaging is now all about being forced to use the official client to be able to use the network. In fact, IM is in a worst state than 15 years ago. That’s stupid.

I don’t want Apple to be allowed to keep it exclusive, as much as I don’t want Telegram, Signal, Facebook, WhatsApp … to force me to install their apps just to be allowed to join my friend’s group.

I’m fed up by the fact that in 2023, you have to follow the rules of whatever corporation to join your friends group because corporations have actively fought against standardized protocols. Even Google is just faking it with their homemade implementation of RCS.

That’s stupid, we should have had some chat equivalent to emails since at least two decades (hello XMPP/Jabber, nice try) and we are here discussing about the exclusivity of iMessage. In an alternative universe we are laughing about the uselessness of an exclusive IM like we would laugh if Apple tried to implement its own exclusive email protocol.

That’s stupid and very sad.

> should be allowed to keep it exclusive.

Not what I asked. Let's take as a given that they are allowed to keep it exclusive. The question is why should them?

I am also not interested in "it makes sense for their business". Unless you are an Apple employee or a significant stockholder, why would anyone prefer iMessage to be exclusive?

You're asking specifically why would any particular iPhone user want iMessage to be exclusive? It's not that they actually affirmatively want it to be exclusive, it's that they simply don't care. They either only communicate with other iPhone users, or a few green bubbles don't bother them. Most of the advocates for iMessage on Android are Android users. It's not complicated. Why would Apple put in the effort to open up iMessage when their customers don't care about it and only their competitor's customers do?

Because it's their right to, and there's no good reason why they should be forced to open it up. It's all the little rights that add together to arrive at the vibrant ecosystem we have now. Apple had and still has the right to create a closed, but coherent ecosystem that consumers are willing to pay a (arguably small) premium to enter with the promise that the quality advertised is the quality received. Taking away that choice from those consumers does not appear to gain back much in other ways. Would Android users be happier? Yes. But there's no evidence that Apple users would be better off _in the long term_. In the short term, both sides might be happier, but that would be shortsighted thinking. It would be removing a reason for Apple to develop future first-party apps that serve as a counterweight to apps owned by corporations interested in selling ad space.

There's also no evidence that iMessage is anti-competitive and a true lock-in experience. People talk about network effects, but iMessage is only a significant messaging app in one country in the entire world. The rest of the world uses a mix of other apps. This is true even in Japan, where iPhones are popular. If people want to use another app, they can. Let the people choose.

That's a very long winded way of saying "because I paid a lot of money for glass trinket and I want to keep the illusion that it was worth it"

Why ask a question in bad faith? You may not agree with my answer, but you asked for the opposing viewpoint and I gave it, but now I see it was a waste of time.

I really like iMessage. I don't get spam on it, it's feature rich, and many of my friends use it.

I'd love to see Apple bring it to Android/Windows, but I'm okay with Apple limiting third-party clients. Usually I'm a strong supporter of open APIs, third party clients, etc., but I just don't want the platform to become full of spam like SMS is.

I think the more interesting question is: why do some think that Apple has some obligation to open up iMessage to the world? There is plenty of competition when it comes to messaging apps.

Apple sees a business advantage by keeping the platform closed, so it is a very reasonable decision to not allow third-party clients. There are many problems in tech; iMessage being closed does not rank high on my list.

> Usually I'm a strong supporter of open APIs, third party clients, etc., but I just don't want the platform to become full of spam like SMS is.

"Open standards are great, but not really important if I am not part of the segregated group".

I am sorry, I am just so tired of these double standards.

Did you ask the question just so you could interpret any given answer as uncharitably as possible and pretend that the people answering are actually Bad People?

You’re making a lot of really bad faith replies.

They are not Bad People, but they have bad rationalizations .

We already have decades worth of lectures and essays that explain why open standards are good for everyone. It is basically impossible that the people here haven't been exposed to any of those ideas, so they are not ignorant. Therefore, it really makes no sense for me to try to rehash those and the best I can do is to simply expose the cognitive dissonance.

From a business perspective I don’t think that would make sense.

From a user perspective I wish they would just open it up.

I think most people who think Beeper Mini was a bad idea think that independently of any opinion about iMessage exclusivity. I support higher fidelity cross platform communication. Whether that's over iMessage or RCS, I don't care.

I don't support the idea that anyone is entitled to steal from another company to run their business, even if it's a $3T company they're stealing from.

Let me turn it around, why should Apple be forced to open it up? I don't really quite understand why iMessage is being treated as some almighty program that those who don't have it are left feeling inferior. It's just about the same as any other messaging app I've used. I sort of get the argument that it has an advantage on iPhones by being the app that handles SMS, but that doesn't seem like a reason to force them to put it on Android. It seems weird to force a developer to make an app for a given platform. If I being really conspiratorial, it seems that all this attention towards forcing Apple to port their app has covered up Google's continued lackluster efforts, and I wonder if there's not an intention behind that.

> why should Apple be forced to open it up?

They shouldn't be forced to it. But by not doing it they are showing how all their talk about inclusiveness and working for the common good is just marketing bullshit.

And the more people I see (on Hacker News of all places) that keep supporting this marketing, the less faith I have in techies' ability to critical thinking.

Why not? It’s their product on a field where there’s plenty of competition. They can do as they please.

When Beeper was alive I received like 20+ fake messages from "girls" from 3rd world countries to scam me. With blue bubbles. We can somewhat trust blue bubbles to be real phones and treat these messages that way so our interaction will change when these bubbles are open to anyone.

Sorry, I don't believe you. You are saying that spammers went out of their way to use a $9.99 service to spam? Why can't they do that with used/old phones and macs before?

Also, if you are relying on "blue bubbles" to ignore spam, perhaps Apple should be forced to become smarter about spam handling?

Sorry, you don't need to believe me. I received these messages and they are undeleted. It is HN though, people treat it as Reddit and never believe what they read. These particular spam messages aligned with when Beeper was alive. If I find time I will screenshot them and send them to your email listed in one of your links.

Honestly? Because it’s Apple’s service to do with what they wish. I don’t view iMessage to be enough of a public good that Apple should be forced to make it public. There’s a lot of other apps like WhatsApp that provide open messaging and so the space is competitive enough.

I would argue that it would be more important for Facebook to open up its social network or Google to open up its ads than for Apple to open up its messaging platform.

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