Pluralistic: The Cult of Mac (12 Jan 2024)


Today's links

  • The Cult of Mac: You cannot reason a person out of a position they did not reason themself into in the first place.
  • Hey look at this: Delights to delectate.
  • This day in history: 2014, 2019, 2023
  • Colophon: Recent publications, upcoming/recent appearances, current writing projects, current reading

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End-To-End Encryption is Too Important to Be Proprietary

The EU’s Digital Markets Act is playing on the hardest setting (and it doesn’t need to).

The EU’s Digital Markets Act (DMA) is set to become law; it will require the biggest tech companies in the world (Apple, Google and Facebook, and maybe a few others) to open up their instant messaging services (iMessage, Facebook Messenger, Whatsapp, and maybe a few others) so that smaller messaging services can plug into them. These smaller services might be run by startups, nonprofits, co-ops, or even individual tinkerers.

The logic behind this is sound. IM tools are the ultimate “network effects” products: once they have a critical mass of users, other users feel they have to join to talk to the people who are already there. The more users who sign up, the more users feel they must sign up.

Continue reading "End-To-End Encryption is Too Important to Be Proprietary"