States rights go both ways. Facebook is a California company. So are many other social media sites, actually. Does Florida even have ANY?

So if we go ahead and go all in on state's rights, DeSantis would have no right to stick his nose in Facebook's business, California would tell him to go pound sand, and if he still wanted to "stick it to those social media luburls in commiefornia" he could damn well go full CCP and build his own great firewall. Actually, that sounds like a perfectly cromulent idea to me. Don't like it? Go ahead and block it. But keep your laws out of my state.

> Don't live in Florida.

Well that sure makes it easy. It's not like Florida would ever try to assert its laws over any out-of-state entity like a social media company in California, right? RIGHT???

> until we get our own version of the great firewall.

Which is really what Florida, or other states that engage in these sorts of shenanigans, should do. It was only a few years ago DeSantis got a bog stick up his ass over an out of state corporation daring to refuse to jump on his anti-LGBT hate train. And here he is now, not just expressing a mere opinion about out-of-his-state entities, but presuming to dictate to them as well.

If you truly believe I'm lying, then prove me wrong. In what way or ways is RCS technologically superior to iMessage? What features dies it have that iMessage does not? What features do both have where the RCS implementation is superior, and how? All RCS has going for it over iMessage is ideological purity.

Of course, you won't even try to prove anything. Because you can't.

Also the police unions need to be broken up. Even in the one-in-a-million chance that you get past qualified immunity, the police unions are so strong in the US that it's damned near impossible to terminate them... or often to punish them in any way... when they engage in stormtrooper tactics against the innocent like this. AND... DAs and judges need to STOP treating the police with kid gloves, giving them the South Park "It's coming right for us!" pass, and, for example, to prosecute and impression this particular pack of thugs just like any band of home-invasion robbers would be.

Maybe you should look at a feature-by-feature comparison of RCS. Oh, and which RCS implementation? Google's? One of the carriers? If so, which one? Regardless, even if you take the most featureful RCS implementation available, it's still a downgrade versus iMessage. SMS, on the other hand, is universal and IS the standard. iMessage, RCS, whatever, are just sets of additional features on top of the standard. And I for one like my messaging the way it is. I don't WANT to downgrade to RCS. And, so far as I'm concerned, all these a-holes who wand to force Apple to switch and force that downgrade upon me can go take a flying leap.

> So I personally like knowing if my messages with
> someone are

Same. And people are willfully ignoring the history of the iPhone here. In the beginning, ALL of those bubbles were green. The blue bubbles for iMessage signal the availability of additional features that are available in addition to standard SMS messaging, which is STILL supported, and has not been degraded in ANY way... a point about which these same people are actively lying. I could almost understand normies not knowing technical details like that. But tech writers on tech sites? Lawmakers and enforcers whose duty it is to imform themselves about these things before making decistions? That's just appalling.

And no, aside from one "Buy youe mom an iPhone" quip on the part of Tim Cook (And do you really expect ANY exec to tell people to F off and use a competitor's procuct?), Apple has NOT been running any campaigh of stigmatization about the green (standard SMS) bubbles... another point on which many people are active lying. And I defy anyone to produce the commercials, press releases, web site text, or any other marketing collateral that says otherwise.

Oh? Perhaps you have forgotten about the lines around the blocks of people waiting in line to buy the first iPhone⦠before there were apps, before there was iCloud, before there was Apple Music, before there was any other sort of an âoeecosystem,â

I actually thought window phone was rather nice for what it was. And it was refreshing to see Microsoft actually come up with their own look and feel versus shamelessly apeing Apple like they usually do. I still think that tile UI would have potential as a home automation hub in a partnership with Amazon on the large screen Echos or similar devices. But as a smartphone, it was sub-par and just meh. It really only should have been sold as a feature phone.

> A forked version (can we call it Radish?) seems
> likely.

There should really be a betting pool on this one. My money is on AWS OpenCache. Or maybe the pool should be on just how quickly the first fork, and the first cloud fork, happen.

By the time I was 16, I had the ability to get ahold of: porn, the "Parental Advisory" version of any album I wanted, bootleg Doctor Who tapes, pirated software, illegal radio transmitters and jammers, alcohol, cigarettes, pot, magic mushrooms, LSD, GHB, and even cocaine. I had the chemistry know-how (NOT from the Anarchist's Cookbook. That stupid-ass rag is a just a good way to get yourself injured, poisoned, or worse.) to make some explosives, jellied gasoline (Not actually napalm, but functionally the same thing.), and my own model rocket engines and fireworks. I had access to guns; though those would have had to be returned to their owners. And this all was before I had any internet access at all.

Some of those took some work or time to acquire. Some took work on my part to create. I didn't have the money for cocaine, but I could have bought if I had. Others I had no interest in. But all of those were available to me if I had the time, inclination, and money.

Well, then it's a good thing there's no free or pirated porn on the internet. And there's definitely no porn on the internet hosted outside the US.

Just remember what the MPAA says; Horrific, deplorable violence is okay, as long as people don't say any naughty woids.

> Imagine if a gun dealer shipped knowing took orders
> for high capacity magazines and shipped them to CA
> residents. Would a CA court tell the DA to bad, the
> dealer is in Texas were they are legal you can't do
> jack about it? - no.

That absolutely should be the case. IDGAF if it's porn, guns, gambling, taxes, Wikileaks, or whatever else you can come up with. If I'm sitting my butt in one jurisdiction, I should never owe some other nation, state, or whatever a single goddamned thing. I live in California. I vote and have representation in California. I do *NOT* have any form of representation in Texas. So any and all Texas busybodies, be they cops, DAs, tax collectors, that asshole governor, other politicians, or whatever, should absolutely be told to go pound sand if they ever try to control or regulate me in any way whatsoever. You may recall a certain phrase from your history books: "No taxation without representation." Well, that should not have stopped at taxation.

Apple has a "monopoly" on the iPhone only in the same way that Ford has a "monopoly" on the Mustang... technically true in the strictest dictionary definition of the word. But when you step out and look at the larger picture, the accusation it utterly unimpressive and disingenuous.

As the Slashdot "no wireless, less space than a nomad, lame" groupthinkers are very quick to point out (Usually anyway... but they're happy to ignoring the fact whenever it suits their purposes.), Apple is actually LOSING to Android, and has been for many years. As of Q1 2024, the Apple's market share is only 29.38%, versus 69.88% for Android. Whatever one may or may think about Apple and whether or not they are engaged in any shenanigans; 30% is NOT a monopoly, especially when your main competitor is out-selling you twice over and then some.

And the "App Store monopoly" claim is similarly unimpressive, until Apple is no longer singled out. When I can but games for my PS5 on the xBox store, games for my PC on Nintendo's eStore or games for my Switch on Valve; THEN the argument might gain a shred of legitimacy.

So basically: "Well... that's a nice looking crypto exchange you've got there. It's be a shame is something were to happen to it." That's not asking nicely. That's extortion. Add in the star chamber style secrecy aspect to whatever this accusation is about and it's extra-double-super loathsome. When did Switzerland become that sort of tin-pot authoritarian police state?