[philistine]

Last century, were the customers connecting their equipment without paying money to Bell ?

[striking]

You now need legit Apple hardware tokens to connect to the network. Those of us currently with iMessage on Beeper have paid our dues.

[philistine]

You've paid your dues to Apple, right? You're not just using someone else's service to connect to another service you're not paying for, right?

[striking]

Yes, I own the physical hardware that the tokens are coming from. I own an (out of date, but still legit) iPhone 6, as well as a new Mac. I have paid Apple that which they would demand of any normal customer, and now I want the messages to flow to my Android phone and my Linux/Windows Desktop.

[tenebrisalietum]

Yes. https://historyofcomputercommunications.info/section/3.2/Car...

[philistine]

So it's very different. Beeper connects to Apple's service without an agreement or payment. The issue with Bell was with paying customers. No one was asking Bell to allow people without an account with them to connect.