[woodruffw]

Interoperability is great. But I'm not arguing about technical merits; the observation is solely that Apple isn't actually forcing its users to do anything, in any legal or even coercive moral sense.

(Separately: I don't think Apple's concern is about level of service. I think they're -- reasonably -- worried that the security properties of their messaging system are harder to uphold without confidence in their client itself. This is not an unreasonable concern.)