[gnicholas]

> Eric only started Beeper after validating massive interest from Hacker News for a paid app that would unify disparate communication channels.

This may be true with regard to the general concept, but how does it relate to the decision to try to skirt the iMessage rules? Validating that people want a feature is different from (and somewhat orthogonal to) ensuring you can actually deliver it.

[jauntywundrkind]

People had found all sorts of paths that semi work, & Beeper tried to use this well known path. It was working. It still is working. But only to a point.

It seems silly to me to condemn Beeper, when Apple doesn't have any published followed enforced rules. It has a term of service, and it has behaviors others get away with, but it's unclear and undefined from Apple what actually will cause a problem & get your registration data cancelled.

There s almost no part of me that considers such a small narrow stance where it's on Beeper to be 100% exactly how the future is going to go before they make any moves.