[riscy]

> You could make a somewhat similar argument about an email provider sending emails to iCloud email addresses

No. They don't work the same way. Your email provider has to maintain a mail server to send and receive emails on your behalf. Your email client connects to that email server to do all its work. Beeper Mini directly connects to Apple's Push Notifications servers to do all send/receive.

People arguing for an open iMessage system like email are completely forgetting how much spam and bad actors have ruined the openness of email. It use to be the case that you could run your own email server, but due to spam, many major email providers like Gmail will reject emails from untrusted IP addresses, for example.

[tadfisher]

Why does the Messages app have a "report spam" button, if it's free from spam and bad actors?

[riscy]

I never said the Messages app was free from spam or bad actors, only you did.

SMS and iMessage spam that is handled by the Messages app are considerably less of a problem precisely because they’re less open protocols. They’re not at all comparable; the vast, vast majority of email is spam.

[pxmpxm]

SMS?