If you want to message another person, you’ll need to decide which platform you want to use. Some people use their carrier’s SMS service, but other people use a combination of different social media messaging services. This means that things are really fragmented among the messaging services, and people are begging for a unified experience.
Major messaging platforms could be forced into interoperability
Big brands and anti-competitive claims go together like peanut butter and jelly. When a company gets to a certain in terms of market share, it’s really for it to create a closed-off ecosystem of products. Then, it can restrict people to its products. This is something that we see a lot, and the European Union (EU) has also seen this. Right now, there are some major messaging platforms. They’re so big in the market that it’s harder for smaller companies to compete. Platforms like Facebook Messenger, WhatsApp, and iMessage are some of the top offenders. Because of this, the EU wants to force these companies into interoperating with smaller platforms. The press release from the EU states that these platforms “will have to open up and interoperate with smaller messaging platforms if they so request. Users of small or big platforms would then be able to exchange messages, send files or make video calls across messaging apps, thus giving them more choice.” This means that a smaller company could send and receive messages from the bigger companies without forcing the user to create an account. This would be a good thing for smaller companies, as they won’t need to compete with multi-billion dollar companies.
There’s one concern, however
There’s one thing that an Apple spokesperson brought that makes sense. In a statement to Verge, the Apple spokesperson said that “some provisions of the DMA will create unnecessary privacy and security vulnerabilities.” That’s a really good point. Not everyone likes the fact that Apple made iMessage so closed-off. Ostensibly, it makes for a more secure messaging tunnel. Opening up iMessage and the other platforms could make for security issues. Right now, the EU is mulling this over. There’s no word on if this will ever happen. If the messaging platforms are forced into interoperability, then they will be fined 10% of their total worldwide turnover in the preceding year. Then, the fine will increase to 20% for repeat offenses.
