It’s not that different from any third-party client though. Remember Trillian? https://web.archive.org/web/20020326174902/http://trillian.c... As they note back in 2002: “ Fixed AOL Connectivity Bug: Yes, again and again and again.”

And they write: > Going forward, Cerulean Studios is committed to maintaining interoperability across all major IM networks. We will continue to work hard and pursue the necessary avenues to keep this a reality. We would also like to express our sincere gratitude to all of you out there supporting us!

We’ve allowed third-party ecosystems to develop elsewhere before. And it’s been said before that the cost to Apple is minimal if you exclude the lock-in effect. Amortized across a global base, running a chat network is barely $1/year/user for the average case is what I’ve seen before on HN.

I’m not saying using a third-party client needs to be completely free - paying Apple in either attention or money makes some sense. But considering that many folks with Android phones might also have Mac laptops or subscribe to Apple Music, it doesn’t seem impossible that Apple could allow for interoperability across devices and clients and that lawmakers could encourage this.