I hope that any attempt Beeper made to negotiate authorized access is made public in an investigation, and Apple’s control of the default secure messaging service baked into all iOS telco customer devices is scrutinized.

If they weren’t concerned about competition, we would have seen iMessage on Android a decade ago.

If they wanted to provide iPhone users a default secure way of messaging competitor hardware, they would have pursued an open alternative to SMS before they faced antitrust investigations.

I am not a "non customer". I am an Apple customer who wants to access the same network from my Android devices and my Apple devices.

Don’t make bad analogies. They cheapen discussion.

I hope cell providers get the option to bundle a secure messaging service that's compatible with all of their customer's devices.

Right now a Verizon iPhone customer can't securely send a message to a Verizon Android customer without forcing their customer to download a third-party app and agree to its terms, and the carrier has no recourse to change that on their iOS devices they are selling to their customers.

Vaguely reminds me a little bit of the web browser antitrust days. Regulators will catch up soon. At least Apple is planning to adopt RCS finally, even though they missed their chance to be part of the formation of the standard.

Edit: Or Apple could release iMessage for Android and for web.

If you service > 50% of Americans and there is only one other vendor, then yes. Exactly this.

Especially if your thing is the "everything" thing.

You just described public clouds.