[chongli]

You can: with Signal. It runs on both iOS and Android.

No one in this thread so far as adequately demonstrated why Apple should be forced to provide a free service — at their own expense — to non-customers. Has any company ever been forced to do that?

[CoolGuySteve]

Why should Apple be in the business of providing a proprietary messaging service when many alternatives already exist in the market like you said.

The clear reason why they are bundling this service with their existing products at a loss is to expand their market share at the expense of interoperability.

This bundling is clearly an antitrust issue, I have a hard time believing all these arguments defending the wealthiest corporation on Earth aren’t being deliberately obtuse.

[chongli]

It's not an antitrust issue because Apple is not a monopoly. They have minority marketshare in all of the markets they operate.

[hattmall]

It's because of the bundling / capture with SMS. If they drop SMS from iMessage and make it clear to end users they are using a separate messaging service not part of their phone plan then there is no case. As long as they combine iMessage with the open standard SMS then it can be argued from a variety of anti-competitive angles. They have used SMS to gain users for iMessage and that's similar to the bundling of IE back in the 90s.

[chongli]

IE was a problem because Microsoft had monopoly marketshare (95% of PC sales included Windows back then). Apple does not have a monopoly. iPhones aren’t even half of all phone sales.

[commoner]

Counterpoint Research shows Apple at 53% of smartphone shipments in the U.S. during Q2 2022 - Q3 2023:

https://www.counterpointresearch.com/insights/us-smartphone-...

That market share is certainly enough to warrant FTC regulation. The FTC investigates anticompetitive activity even when the perpetrator is not a monopoly.

While Microsoft had a higher market share, Windows never prevented users from installing a third-party web browser. On the other hand, Apple is actively blocking third-party SMS/MMS clients from iOS via its App Store restrictions. This factor makes it more likely that Apple will be regulated despite iOS currently having a lower market share than Windows during Microsoft's antitrust trial.

[chongli]

The App Store is a separate issue. If you want to talk about opening that up, I'm game.

The issue here is the iMessage service. Throughout this thread, I have not seen anyone give a single example from US history (monopoly or otherwise) where a company has been forced to provide free access to a service -- at their own expense -- to the customers of their competitors. It's unprecedented!

It's just like airport VIP lounges. Should an airline that offers free VIP lounge access for their business and first class ticket-holders be forced to allow customers of competitor airlines to use their VIP lounge for free? After all, you can meet people in a VIP lounge so there are networking effects. Yet it really doesn't seem right that an airline who built and maintains a VIP lounge at their own expense (rental space in an airport is NOT CHEAP) should be forced to give away access to that space for free to competitors' customers.

How is the iMessage case any different?

Edit: I should also add that I bet Apple can produce a TON of data from usage patterns to show that iMessage in no way harms competitive messaging products on iPhones. Messenger, WhatsApp, Signal, Snapchat, and countless other messaging products are doing just fine on the iPhone, so I doubt the "bundling" argument holds any water. As for how iMessage affects the Android market? Since when is it against the law to add free features/services to your products in order to distinguish them from your competitors' offerings?

Microsoft lost their antitrust case over IE because they harmed Netscape's browser business on Windows. Bundling IE with Windows had no affect on the Mac/Linux/Unix business and the case was never about that.

[commoner]

It is obviously absurd to compare messaging protocols to airline lounges. Messaging protocols are digital and required for text message communications, an essential technology used by almost every smartphone user. Airline lounges are luxury physical spaces and nobody needs an airline lounge to get on a plane.

Apple's anticompetitive conduct is that it bans third-party SMS/MMS clients as a way to boost usage of its iMessage protocol and disadvantage competing cross-platform messenger services. Microsoft never banned competing web browsers from accessing any protocol (e.g. HTTP or FTP) on Windows, so Apple's conduct in the messaging space is more egregious than Microsoft's previous conduct in the browser space.

[chongli]

You’ll need to provide evidence that 3rd party messaging clients (Messenger, WhatsApp, Signal, Telegram, Instagram, Snapchat etc.) are actually harmed by this. Frankly, I don’t buy your argument at all, nor does it have anything to do with the issue of Beeper.

As a user I don’t want these other apps getting access to my incoming SMS messages. I’m fine with one app getting all the messages. It really doesn’t make any difference whether my messages have green or blue bubbles (and people complaining about that are really stretching).

As for the argument that 3rd parties should be allowed access to the iMessage network. When are all those other apps coming aboard that plan? When can I write my own app for Messenger instead using Meta’s?

[mashmac2]

Lots of companies have been forced to do provide free services to non-customers; consider almost any industry classified as a 'utility'. The question here is 'are message platforms a thing that should be classified and regulated as if it were a utility?'

For me, the answer is clearly no; there are plenty of communication platforms that can be used freely with interoperability (e.g. email). And, as you note, there are lots of interoperable options.

[chongli]

Lots of companies have been forced to do provide free services to non-customers; consider almost any industry classified as a 'utility'.

Since when is any utility service free? Electricity, water, phone service. All of these require payment for service. For electricity you have to pay for both generation (from your chosen generator) and for transmission on the wires to your house. For water you have to pay for all water and sewage service to your house. For phone service you have to pay your provider. If you roam outside of their network they have to pay the other network to carry your traffic (and then it’s up to your provider to decide how to charge you for roaming).

Edit: I should add that email is an example of a service which is not a utility. Why? Email providers are free to block any message they like, preventing delivery in either direction. They typically use this discretion to filter spam but they're under no obligation to deliver. Anyone who has set up their own email server will know what I'm talking about: you have to jump through a lot of hoops to get your emails delivered to Gmail users!

[mikhailt]

> Lots of companies have been forced to do provide free services to non-customers; consider almost any industry classified as a 'utility'.

Where do you live?

Essential services or utilities are NOT free in United States. Everyone has to pay for water, heat, gas, etc. There's no free access to it.