[diebeforei485]

The only backup provider allowed is also the communication service provider, which defeats the point of E2EE because the keys are also stores transparently (ie, not even encrypted with the device passcode).

That is the problem. Apple's business decision to ban other backup providers like Backblaze etc is making their privacy efforts meaningless.

Why is it a problem? Because governments and powerful entities need only contact Apple (the communication provider) to know the contents of the message. And I as a user have no way of knowing if others in the chat have advanced protection enabled, as I am only protected if every participant in the conversation has the correct settings, which are not the default settings.

So while this might meet some technical definition of E2EE, it does not meet the common-sense definition of E2EE where the communication provider has zero visibility into content.