I don’t think any business is obliged to make their products/services interoperable. It’s their business and their decision.
Can I also demand google provide me with free use of their infrastructure?
Core infrastructure like this should be treated and regulated more like a utility.
I don't think iMessage is in a position of "adoption without alternatives."
What do you mean by this? Don't most lines of business naturally trend towards monopolies and captive markets...? Railroads, newspapers, grocery stores, utilities, cloud services...?
Historically the reason corporations were given limited liability was in return for them performing a public good.
If in a democracy most people want open messaging, I see no reason why they shouldn't have it.
Corporations are not the same as people, they are tools.
And how far does "most people want <X>" go? If "most people want" to prevent people from being married, is that justifiable?
What would be so wrong with the people mandating a next generation messaging standard and requiring all cell phone manufacturers add support for the new standard? Kind of like Europe did with charging cables. Would that make the world a better or a worse place?
I never said anything about making iMessage the only available option. Apple users could keep iMessage, too. Worst case their users have more options.
I agree that it is an interesting question on how far the will of the people goes, i.e. democracy vs mob rule. But I wouldn't put corporate profits on a pedestal over all other considerations.
This has nothing whatsoever to do with "corporations as people" or "corporate greed." iMessage is not critical to living life in the United States or globally, so the notion that a government ought to take it from Apple anyway seems to be completely unjustified.
I mentioned that mandated support on phones for a new and better messaging standard seems like a reasonable idea. There's even precedent for such things - the European Universal Charger Mandate.
How is that taking iMessage from Apple? They can still run their own separate messenger, like they do now. Are you worried about them loosing the advantage they have by using their market size to keep users on their proprietary messaging system and not wanting more competition? Is that kind of like how they used to make extra money selling proprietary charging cables?
By "nationalize" I assume you were thinking of things like mandates that Apple servers be required to support third-party iMessage clients, or that the government takes over Apple's iMessage servers. I don't like these ideas, either.
But I think there are a lot of other possibilities, and precedents. The U.S. regulates and imposes on carriers to handle wiretaps and spam, Europe mandates that phone manufacturers use interoperable power adapters, baseband chips in phones are heavily regulated, etc. Other industries like banking and mining and construction are steeped in regulation. Justified as being for the public good.
Perhaps a better interoperable messaging standard could be implemented as a mandated replacement for sms and mms. The goal is better baseline messaging for all users. Companies can still do their own thing besides that, like they do now.
What do you think of such an idea?
> At a certain level of adoption, they should be forced to, IMO. Our monopoly laws never envisioned self contained platforms/marketplaces
with this comment:
> What justification is there for this, though? There is nothing specifically unique to iMessage that makes life, liberty, or property difficult to pursue.
You then said:
> Devil's advocate...
> Historically the reason corporations were given limited liability was in return for them performing a public good.
> If in a democracy most people want open messaging, I see no reason why they shouldn't have it.
> Corporations are not the same as people, they are tools.
When one says "[To play] Devil's advocate", one is taking on the position opposite of the person they're speaking with. My position is, "What is the justification for forcing Apple to open iMessage?" That means you're taking the position of, "There is justification for forcing Apple to open iMessage." You then do this by saying your third line, that if a democracy has a majority of people wanting something, you see no reason why they shouldn't have it.
Intentional or not, you took on the position that iMessage should be taken from Apple by the US government and forcibly open-sourced because that's the will of the people. When I responded, I was responding to the comments you had made in this direction, which you continued to make.
What I think is that iMessage is owned by Apple, and since it doesn't provide any critical and otherwise unobtainable service, it should not be nationalized. That was what we were discussing. I didn't opt to participate in an open-ended discussion that bounces around on the general topic of open sourced messaging platforms, I responded to a specific argument with a specific counterpoint.
In hindsight I assume that you were thinking of the government taking iMessage from Apple? I didn't see anyone mention that specifically, and I never assumed that would be how the government would approach this.
Everybody knows that social democracies have plenty of legal justification and precedent for doing such things. They impose on industry all the time, in many different sectors. They have done such things as mandate interoperability, and they could do so in order to allow for more capable messaging for everyone, perhaps updates to existing sms/mms like I mentioned, without targeting one company specifically. When enough voters care about an issue our representatives respond within regulatory and constitutional limits. Whether you agree or not, that's how the world we live in works. We don't live in an Ayn Rand novel.
My initial reply spoke to the moral justification underpinning the legal justification for such things, i.e. the public good.
> Intentional or not, you took on the position...
I tried to correct your erroneous assumptions about my position in our thread, and ask questions to learn more about yours. That has not gone well. One might wonder if you are deflecting for some reason.
> I didn't opt to participate in an open-ended discussion that bounces around on the general topic of open sourced messaging platforms, I responded to a specific argument with a specific counterpoint.
Sometimes back and forth is required to avoid misunderstandings, to better explore a nuanced topic, and to narrow things down instead of talking in circles. Fine by me if you'd rather not.
But why try so hard to steer this wildly far from the original topic? Initially I presumed malice, but at this point I'm guessing you don't get to have these kinds of conversations a lot and are just vomiting anything that comes to your mind.
If you want to continue the discussion, directly answer the following question:
What justification is there for using governmental authority to force Apple to make iMessage interoperable with any/every other chat service?
You wanted to play the Devil's advocate, right? So do it. Or don't, but the above was the topic.
The topic was not, "People ought to be allowed to make a separate messaging protocol if they want to." Of course that's obviously fine, by the way, nobody suggested it wasn't, and in fact that's exactly what RCS is purporting to be. Or pick any of a dozen other protocols, the concept is the least controversial possible position on the topic to take. Why are you so intent on talking about what is the single most unoriginal and boring aspect of this entire debate (because everybody agrees with what you're saying)?
> What justification is there for using governmental authority to force Apple to make iMessage interoperable with any/every other chat service?
Justifications, in order of specificity:
1) Political philosophy: "government action is occasionally the only feasible or cost-effective way of bringing about an outcome which each person sees as beneficial - or would see as beneficial under idealized epistemic conditions - but which they lack the power to bring about unilaterally" [1]
2) Better user experience: "When a sector is extremely concentrated, the people who are willing to trade the public good and foundational democratic values for incremental increases in their employer’s profitability get a hearing within the company and take over the company’s decision making. When a business doesn’t have to worry about losing its customers due to abusing them ... eventually becomes a serious hazard to human rights." [2]
3) U.S. Supreme Court ruling: "The U.S. Supreme Court - just like the EU - recognized that interoperability was a critical user benefit that assured innovation and lowered cost" [3]
4) Legal precedent: The 1996 Telecommunications Act "sets obligations for incumbent carriers and new entrants to interconnect their networks" [4]
5) Proposed new law: "The U.S. ACCESS Act of 2021 mandates data portability from big tech companies." [5] This specific law didn't address messaging, but does address other services. Quite a few other anti-trust reforms have been implemented and are being discussed.
6) Department of Justice investigation: The DOJ is currently looking into "whether Apple is doing something it shouldn't be - blocking access to iMessage for reasons other than privacy and security." [6]
7) Current law: "The EU Digital Markets Act mandates that messaging services like iMessage are required to offer other companies some level of interoperability if they’re deemed to be big and important enough." [7] This law in Europe does exactly what you asked about, with WhatsApp and Facebook Messenger, forcing them to allow access from other clients. I don't know that anybody considers these as nationalized. Apple's iMessage is being reviewed, at this time it might not be big and important enough in Europe to be covered.
Shared values, legal precendent, new laws and the courts are how we collectively make decisions in constitutional representative social democracies. In practicality no further justification is required. If enough people want interoperability they'll eventually get it, like what already is happening in Europe, and is being talked about in the U.S. This is how our governments are designed to operate. Politics ends up reflecting the culture, and we don't live in an anarcho-capitalist society. That's not what most people want.
Do you have a position different than the above that you can speak to? Perhaps something that might persuade others to consider an alternate point of view?
Exploring this topic in more detail I'm glad to learn that the system appears to be in headed in the direction I'd hoped for. I'm content.
I'm happy to let you have the last word if this all seems like more vomit to you, maybe another pedantic zinger for old times sake ;-)
[1] https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/1470594X13505414
[2] https://spectrum.ieee.org/doctorow-interoperability
[3] https://www.eweek.com/development/google-vs-oracle-scotus-ru...
[4] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Telecommunications_Act_of_1996
[5] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ACCESS_Act_of_2021
[6] https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/technology/apples-refusal-to-...
[7] https://www.theverge.com/2023/9/6/23861030/imessage-bing-eur...
What it seems to boil down to is entitlement. You feel entitled to this product because it’s common. That’s a wild violation of the social contract and demonstrates a thoroughly unconsidered approach to how society handles the reward of novel ideas and if normalized would utterly kill innovation and ruin the very things you seem to care about.
So you’re faced with a choice; let Apple continue to control iMessage, or give up on the idea of rewarding innovation. You don’t get both, despite your apparent belief that you are entitled to the works of others.
> your examples presumes falsely that iMessage provides a unique service
You know that anti-trust laws apply to all kinds of anti-competitve situations and not just monopolies on a unique good, right? Things like building walled gardens and buying up the competition can fall into this category.
> violation of the concept of ownership
There's nothing sacred about current ideas of ownership. They changes over time. It used to be that peasants and women and children were property and kings owned all the land. Intellectual property rights have changed. We compromise ownership rights with things like imminent domain, property taxes, zoning and libraries. Why do you assume that a messaging protocol should be owned the same way as other property?
> but you do this without justification
The root of this issue is that people are unsettled with the direction big tech has taken, concentrated in so few companies, they way they embrace and extend, weaponize the legal system, lobby politicians, profit off people's privacy, attention and well being, etc. Governments are taking action because this is what people want. That's how the world works.
Do you assume that people are supposed to adhere to your principals when they are unhappy with what big tech is doing? This is all new, why would you assume that the rules shouldn't be adjusted for new situations?
> You feel entitled to this product because it’s common
This isn't just me and this isn't just this product. It's much bigger than that. People are unhappy with the direction big tech is going. In general they are exploiting old rules with new technology. You're not providing any answers here.
> violation of the social contract
The social contract is not guaranteed to stay the same for you or anyone else. It evolves when there are significant changes. Things like the bubonic plague, the printing press, the new world, the industrial revolution, large scale farming and container ships and other things all drove significant societal changes, some good and some not so good. The amount and pace of change due to the internet and mobile computing is unprecedented. Stuff like this prompts changes to the social contract, in an attempt to fix problems. The social contract is always changing, every generation there are tweaks.
The people who wanted to keep slavery legal said the same thing you're saying - it's not fair to violate the social contract. Well sometimes that's the right thing to do.
> if normalized would utterly kill innovation
Wouldn't open protocols tend to encourage innovation, like what happened with the internet and open source software? Instead of these companies milking profits for years because of network effects and their ability to lock out the competition wouldn't it be better if switching costs were lowered? Wouldn't that create a lot of possibilities for alternatives, and lower prices, and a better balance between these big companies and the rest of society? That's what people want.
Innovation is not Apple reverse-engineering MS Office formats then later using the legal system to stop others from doing the same thing.
What is it that you are afraid of? Do you think these big companies can't compete if they had to open some of their protocols? Do you ever worry that a few big tech companies have carved up the world and will stifle anything or anyone that gets in the way of their profits?
[1] https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2019/06/adversarial-interopera...
…or you would be if you actually believed any of this. Of course you don’t in any meaningful sense, otherwise you would live substantially differently, to the point that even using HN would be impossible. So it’s just hateful, selfish rhetoric then. It costs nothing to you to write these completely unsubstantiated ideas on the Internet, but it would cost you everything you enjoy to actually implement.
It’s abundantly clear you’ve never considered any of this before, and have zero conception of the consequences of what you’re suggesting. HN wouldn’t exist, your job wouldn’t exist, nor would whatever you do for fun, the main ways food is delivered to your grocery stores, clean water into your home… nothing you value would operate if we eschewed basic ownership concepts such as what your suggestions here would require.
You claim to want to return us to the stone age, so forgive me if I in no way believe you.
But you know, without even addressing any of that, you have changed my mind! You just kept repeating the same things about ownership and entitlement, and that making changes was all my crazy idea. You even pointed out a couple times that I was thinking thoughts I didn't know I had.
I had no idea that hacker news would cease to exist if we mandated open protocols for big tech messaging. I don't see how that's related, but it must be, you said so. I'm surprised hacker news made it as far they did with all the open protocols that already exist. We'd be so much better off if CERN never opened the http protocol. Just like how mandating telephone network interoperability decades ago will destroy that industry. Any day now I'm sure.
All of those people and their concerns about big tech, and all of those countries passing new laws about big tech, I just saw one about Japan cracking down on app store monopolies, they must all be wrong. Because those companies own that stuff, like you said. Those who want choice are wrong. All of those people and governments must be hateful and selfish like me. We should let those big companies do what they want. These companies got big first and that entitles them to continue to control how most of us communicate, censuring us with their algorithms, etc. No big deal, it's not like communication is important to people. Too bad for those other companies that weren't in the right place at the right time, they don't have a moat or a enough lawyers and lobbyists to protect themselves. The printing press showed us how inconsequential communication revolutions are, just the whole reformation and enlightenment happening afterwards, no big deal. And what's with these new copyright laws at the time? If you own a book you should be able to copy it! Rules are rules and can't be changed. If we make any changes to mandate open protocols we'll utterly kill innovation, just like you said. The success of the everything built on the open internet and OSS proves that. It'll be another stone age if we keep that up, like you said.
Why didn't I see this before? Maybe I think too much, that must be my problem. Who needs logic or historical context to understand this stuff when emotional words like kill and hate and destroy carry much more weight and make so much more sense. So insightful. The current order is paramount, no matter how the world changes. I never knew how reassuring it was to be a reactionary and just dig in and ignore everything to the contrary, sure that I'm always right. I like this feeling of not having to challenge my preconceived notions, or explain myself. It's comfortable.
Thanks you so much! I applaud your efforts.
Should people be able to agree on a shared and open protocol for communication? Yes. Should the US government nationalize iMessage? No.