Apple Expanding 10-Minute 'Everyone' AirDrop Limit to All Users With iOS 16.2

[Juicy Box]

Maybe it’s both reasons?

Are you thinking that in some areas Apple did this because of local laws, and other areas that do not have these laws, Apple did it for spam? I doubt it, but maybe.

Besides, if spam had anything to do with it, @scotty321 had a valid point saying that spam has never been a widespread (or any) issue before, and if it was spam, then that could be corrected with giving the option to opt out instead of removing the feature completely. Check out the post from @scotty321 addressing it:

If spam was really a problem — and it has NEVER BEEN A PROBLEM in 10 years of using this feature — then give people the option of choosing either “everyone” or “everyone for 10 minutes”. Then, all of these “people“ who are supposedly inundated with spam (i.e. nobody) could choose to make the change themselves.

 

[Vlad Soare]

Are you thinking that in some areas Apple did this because of local laws, and other areas that do not have these laws, Apple did it for spam? I doubt it, but maybe.

It could be that Apple did this primarily because of the Chinese law, and then couldn't be bothered to make a different version of the software (or to implement an exception) for the rest of the world, so they just came up with the spam excuse.

 

[Vlad Soare]

Come to think of it, the ten minute rule doesn't really solve the Chinese government's problem. People can simply activate it again after ten minutes and can communicate with each other just fine. It's merely an annoyance, not a show stopper.
So what might have happened is that the Chinese wanted this feature scrapped altogether, but Apple didn't want to remove it for everybody, nor did they want to make a separate iOS version just for China. So they negotiated with the Chinese: "tell you what, we'll make a compromise. We'll keep the feature, but we'll make it more limited and annoying to use. What say you?" And the Chinese said OK, that's still better than nothing, Apple made up an excuse for the rest of the world, and everybody's happy. Well, everybody except us who aren't stupid enough to be fooled by that lame spam excuse.