An illegal actor could still

and that's all legality on the internet can achieve: calling these illegal actors. just like if I would be called an illegal actor if I kept using Matrix and Signal after (and if) chat control has passed.

but they would be taking on risk,

have you seen this article by Proton, showing how much big tech pays in penalties for their illegal acts?

it does not matter.

paying substantial infratstructure costs,

piece of cake for those who already have it. I'm but only talking about traditional big tech, but also other large companies like clearview ai.

would not be able to make it widely available for fear of being caught, and would have limited options for actually making any real money from it.

Except if they are

• in a non-EU country, because EU has no power outside it
• having business with police forces and such, because then it can easily get an exception or get hidden or handwaved away

It would completely prevent say, your average stalker, or jilted ex, or non techy weirdo from.being able to access it, and it would prevent corporations from spending all their time building business around privacy invasion.

only if it gets found out, and if the person doing it does nothing to hide itself. I don't think this would be effective.

what I think though that this could be used as another reason to support chat control, and automated surveillance with it, but maybe not even at the chat system, but at the camera software or operating system level