[migueldeicaza]

There is a big stick coming from the EU (and someone said the same is coming from the UK).

My guess is that Apple designed this privacy protecting system so that they could deliver the solution on their own terms - and perhaps leading the way on how this could be done before they are hit with a cookie-banner-popup-level solution from bureaucrats.

Regardless on your opinion on whether they should scan or not, both the EU and the UK now have a reference design that protects the privacy of people, and still manages to either identify the people that own that material, or make it more inconvenient to own that material.

As we like to say "Deplatforming works", and in this case, a good useful tool for people that own those pictures is no longer available, and they have to resort to jumping through hoops and relying on more inconvient solutions. The later might not solve the root problem, but introduces friction that gets in their way.