[vinay_ys]

Why does Apple couple iMessage with rest of iCloud? Why is iCloud and iCloud Keychain being on a requirement for secure iMessage to function? That seems like a poor design choice to me.

For someone who cares about their communication security deeply enough to do contact public key verification, they would likely want to turn off iCloud syncing iMessage across multiple devices. They are likely to not have same iCloud account on multiple devices. In such cases, what's the value of having iCloud Keychain being turned on?

[varenc]

iMessage Key Verification does not require that you use 'iCloud for iMessage' (aka iCloud message syncing), it just requires that you're signed into iCloud and have iCloud Keychain enabled. Your critique is still valid but I think it's important to note that you're not required to store all your actual encrypted iMessage content in iCloud.

[the_gipsy]

Maybe it's a dark pattern, like safari downloads defaulting to iCloud instead of the phone.

[hnbear]

Given how hard it is to find your downloads locally on your phone, I think most users want sharing with other devices my default.

Makes sense to download stuff and have it be in downloads on the laptop or iPad.

I don’t think that’s really that dark.