The article says what he’s doing is clearly illegal, and backs it up with the law that he’s violating. He’s offering, through a lottery, a chance to receive payment in order to incentivize people to register to vote. CAH is probably treading close to the line, but I can’t say it’s clearly illegal. What Musk is described as doing seems to be pretty clearly illegal, to me.

Whoever knowingly or willfully gives false information as to his name, address or period of residence in the voting district for the purpose of establishing his eligibility to register or vote, or conspires with another individual for the purpose of encouraging his false registration to vote or illegal voting, or pays or offers to pay or accepts payment either for registration to vote or for voting shall be fined not more than $10,000 or imprisoned not more than five years, or both

Can you explain why you don’t seem to think what Musk is doing is illegal?

I see YouTube videos linked, and I remember being on this site before YouTube existed. I don’t think it has changed all that much, though.

I think you might be thinking of Cruise?

https://gizmodo.com/cruise-robotaxi-human-assistance-kyle-vogt-1850997279

Yeah, this really all feels like the carriers have dropped the ball.

Google is the only one that allows “End to end” encryption.

Allowing and implementing are not the same things. They implemented encryption in their RCS services. They don’t allow everyone to use their service, but they built and own it so that’s their right, I guess.

And practically speaking google controls the standard, they have over 800 million users out of the total possible 1.2 billion.

Can you elaborate here? How do they control the standard? Specifically, I’m not asking about their implementation of RCS, because of course they control that, but their implementation is not the same thing as the standard itself.

It might not be a monopolistic standard in theory but it is in practice

It’s widely understood that it’s difficult to implement a competent web browser. That’s why there are only a handful of browser choices. This doesn’t make HTTP a monopolistic protocol.

Saying the RCS standard is a monopolistic standard makes zero sense to me, even in practice. We are quite literally discussing another vendor entering the market. If you run a telecom and want to implement RCS, you are able to do so. If you are a phone manufacturer you are free to implement RCS in your software stack. None of this is easy, but it’s possible and so this isn’t a monopoly situation as far as I understand it. Google wanted to compete with iMessage so they built a competitor on a proprietary but open global standard, the standard which is meant to replace SMS and MMS messaging.

I’ll take that as a win!

RCS is a proprietary standard, but it is not owned or controlled by Google. They just happen to be one of the first major corporations to embrace and implement the standard.

Again, you’re still arguing from the standpoint that I’m making fun of her natural eyebrows.

Which I’m not.

You’re attacking appearances. How one dresses or applies makeup doesn’t matter in the context of the conversation. These are are matters of personal taste. Why do we need to know your thoughts on this?

I’m making fun of her shallow decision making and poor choices.

Not really, though. You’re just talking about how someone’s personal taste doesn’t align with your personal taste. This is like arguing about favorite colors. It’s a weak position to argue as it’s entirely subjective. It actively undermines any other argument you might be trying to make.

Of all the things to mention, and you’re focused on eyebrows? You sound extremely biased because of this weak argument. It gives the impression that you share this same quality of being shallow. It serves as a potential indicator that you might be unable to pick out relevant detail in a conversation, which also makes you seem like a waste of time to communicate with.

If you’re arguing another point this is detracting from that point. If you’re not arguing another point, then this insipid opinion is irrelevant to the discussion.