> charging users by piggy backing off of servers they don’t own or pay for
Apple is free to charge for them. In fact, I think it would be the best outcome and a mitigation to the upcoming spam onslaught now that the protocol has been documented.
> But that wouldn’t be profitable for them.
Is it a problem to profit off creating a tool that some other manufacturer intentionally doesn't want to create (since Apple is more than capable of building an Android iMessage client)? Isn't that the whole point of a competitive market?
But I don’t think anyone disagrees that Apple is (currently) free _not_ to charge for them.
> Is it a problem to profit off creating a tool that some other manufacturer intentionally doesn't want to create
I’d say ethically no - not a problem - up _until_ the point where they are actively, continuously using resources of that manufacturer. Legally? If you or your customers have agreed to a TOS then that’s probably bad either way.
Nobody would care about (or be interested in) beeper if they were running their own servers.
It currently doesn't because Beeper Mini users are able to get access without paying. This should change, if anything just to make the upcoming onslaught of spam unprofitable.
Apple is free to charge for them. In fact, I think it would be the best outcome and a mitigation to the upcoming spam onslaught now that the protocol has been documented.
> But that wouldn’t be profitable for them.
Is it a problem to profit off creating a tool that some other manufacturer intentionally doesn't want to create (since Apple is more than capable of building an Android iMessage client)? Isn't that the whole point of a competitive market?