<story><title>Apple&apos;s iMessage avoids EU&apos;s Digital Markets Act regulation</title><url>https://www.macrumors.com/2024/02/13/imessage-avoids-eu-regulation/</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>hwbehrens</author><text>I think it&amp;#x27;s a historical artifact -- by the time that iMessage launched, the US was well into the phase of free, unlimited texting, so there was no barrier to &amp;quot;just texting&amp;quot;. Since there was &lt;i&gt;also&lt;/i&gt; no barrier (in terms of costs, subscriptions, or installation friction) to using iMessage, it was a drop-in upgrade of the user experience for SMS.&lt;p&gt;In contrast, I &lt;i&gt;still&lt;/i&gt; have to pay a fee to send SMS messages to my European relatives, so there&amp;#x27;s a financial incentive to overcome that initial friction to switch messaging provider.</text></item><item><author>ghusto</author><text>In the U.S.A., people use iMessage by default, because they use text messaging. People don&amp;#x27;t use texts in Europe (we use WhatsApp and similar, but WhatsApp by a long margin).&lt;p&gt;The reason people still use texts in the U.S.A. is up for debate, and it&amp;#x27;s something I&amp;#x27;ve thought about for a long time.</text></item><item><author>marcellus23</author><text>I&amp;#x27;m curious, in what sense did it come &amp;quot;for free&amp;quot; in the USA?</text></item><item><author>jerojero</author><text>The usage of iMessage in Europe is vastly inferior to the usage of it in America.&lt;p&gt;I think that was a reasonable argument from Apple and the European Commission agreed.&lt;p&gt;But the thing is, apple obviously wants for people to use iPhones in Europe and to use their services just like in America. But they are now very much aware that this sort of market dominance won&amp;#x27;t come for free like it does in the USA.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>bombcar</author><text>More importantly, most Americas &lt;i&gt;do not text&lt;/i&gt; anyone outside of the country, and haven&amp;#x27;t really ever.&lt;p&gt;So people had no real reason to move off of texting, because it just worked, and Apple&amp;#x27;s iMessage just looks like texting seamlessly.</text></comment>
<story><title>Apple&apos;s iMessage avoids EU&apos;s Digital Markets Act regulation</title><url>https://www.macrumors.com/2024/02/13/imessage-avoids-eu-regulation/</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>hwbehrens</author><text>I think it&amp;#x27;s a historical artifact -- by the time that iMessage launched, the US was well into the phase of free, unlimited texting, so there was no barrier to &amp;quot;just texting&amp;quot;. Since there was &lt;i&gt;also&lt;/i&gt; no barrier (in terms of costs, subscriptions, or installation friction) to using iMessage, it was a drop-in upgrade of the user experience for SMS.&lt;p&gt;In contrast, I &lt;i&gt;still&lt;/i&gt; have to pay a fee to send SMS messages to my European relatives, so there&amp;#x27;s a financial incentive to overcome that initial friction to switch messaging provider.</text></item><item><author>ghusto</author><text>In the U.S.A., people use iMessage by default, because they use text messaging. People don&amp;#x27;t use texts in Europe (we use WhatsApp and similar, but WhatsApp by a long margin).&lt;p&gt;The reason people still use texts in the U.S.A. is up for debate, and it&amp;#x27;s something I&amp;#x27;ve thought about for a long time.</text></item><item><author>marcellus23</author><text>I&amp;#x27;m curious, in what sense did it come &amp;quot;for free&amp;quot; in the USA?</text></item><item><author>jerojero</author><text>The usage of iMessage in Europe is vastly inferior to the usage of it in America.&lt;p&gt;I think that was a reasonable argument from Apple and the European Commission agreed.&lt;p&gt;But the thing is, apple obviously wants for people to use iPhones in Europe and to use their services just like in America. But they are now very much aware that this sort of market dominance won&amp;#x27;t come for free like it does in the USA.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>GeekyBear</author><text>&amp;gt; by the time that iMessage launched, the US was well into the phase of free, unlimited texting&lt;p&gt;The iPhone itself launched with unlimited data, but limited text messages.&lt;p&gt;&amp;gt; keep in mind that AT&amp;amp;T&amp;#x27;s default rate plans for the iPhone don&amp;#x27;t include unlimited SMS messages: they include 200 messages per month unless you add an extra-SMS plan. Chatting this way can easily rack up your SMS charges if you&amp;#x27;re not careful.&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;arstechnica.com&amp;#x2F;gadgets&amp;#x2F;2007&amp;#x2F;07&amp;#x2F;iphone-review&amp;#x2F;8&amp;#x2F;&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;arstechnica.com&amp;#x2F;gadgets&amp;#x2F;2007&amp;#x2F;07&amp;#x2F;iphone-review&amp;#x2F;8&amp;#x2F;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;p&gt;When iMessage launched as part of iOS 5, free unlimited SMS was still not a normal thing.&lt;p&gt;&amp;gt; iMessage is Apple&amp;#x27;s answer to SMS and MMS—a way to send text and multimedia messages to other iOS device users without relying on a cell carrier. Any kind of text-type message between iOS users can be sent for free in unlimited amounts without chipping away at those overpriced text messages that you pay for through your carrier.&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;arstechnica.com&amp;#x2F;gadgets&amp;#x2F;2011&amp;#x2F;10&amp;#x2F;ios-5-reviewed-notifications-imessages-and-icloud-oh-my&amp;#x2F;&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;arstechnica.com&amp;#x2F;gadgets&amp;#x2F;2011&amp;#x2F;10&amp;#x2F;ios-5-reviewed-notif...&lt;/a&gt;</text></comment>