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And http is not a plumbing protocol nowadays? Or maybe you expect twitter to write a rfc about its api, which for obvious economic and strategic reasons they d

by mahouse 11y ago

And http is not a plumbing protocol nowadays? Or maybe you expect twitter to write a rfc about its api, which for obvious economic and strategic reasons they don't want to open? WhatsApp maybe? How would benefit them to have 3rd party clients they wouldn't be able to control? Or having to justify or change their protocol decisions with an rfc? I don't understand, I'm genuinely confused, this article sounds very naïve, very delusional, so probably I am just misunderstanding it.

icebraining 11y ago
It may be naive, but the reality is that it wasn't that uncommon. Before WhatsApp, GTalk did support a standard protocol. Mail providers all use standard protocols. RSS used to be "the future".
- yoz-y 11y ago
  I would say that GTalk only supported standard protocols from the start to gain traction. Email is probably too widespread and decentralised to be handled differently.
detaro 11y ago
Remember twitter and the discussions when they nuked third-party clients? And yes, messengers not working with other clients is one of the most user-unfriendly things they do and something many users consider a bug. And really only has taken off with the start of mobile messengers, before that most could be interfaced from different clients.
- icebraining 11y ago
  And yes, messengers not working with other clients is one of the most user-unfriendly things they do and something many users consider a bug. And really only has taken off with the start of mobile messengers, before that most could be interfaced from different clients. I think that's somewhat misleading. MSN Messenger, Yahoo!, etc didn't use standard protocols, it's just that people would reverse engineer them. Third-party clients did just stop working from time to time whenever the providers changed something in the protocol.
  - amyjess 11y ago
    I really have to wonder what happened to all the people who used to reverse-engineer chat protocols. Did they all just give up?
    - icebraining 11y ago
      They're still around - WhatsApp has had multiple unofficial clients pop up, for example, though the company is much more heavy-handed in taking them down (DMCA takedowns against libraries that use the API, banning users of unofficial apps, etc).
niklasni1 11y ago
This is the entire point. I wish communications happened over an open protocol instead of over Twitter's protocol, not because it benefits Twitter, but because it benefits me. Email is open. For some reason people think of email as different. GMail could've provided the exact same conditions and experience when they launched, but only enabled GMail-GMail communications. It would never have got to where it is, never. And there's obviously no technical reason instant messaging, social networking, etc., should work any different, but for some reason it's perceived as different.

by mahouse 11y ago

icebraining 11y ago

It may be naive, but the reality is that it wasn't that uncommon. Before WhatsApp, GTalk did support a standard protocol. Mail providers all use standard protocols. RSS used to be "the future".

yoz-y 11y ago
I would say that GTalk only supported standard protocols from the start to gain traction. Email is probably too widespread and decentralised to be handled differently.

detaro 11y ago

Remember twitter and the discussions when they nuked third-party clients? And yes, messengers not working with other clients is one of the most user-unfriendly things they do and something many users consider a bug. And really only has taken off with the start of mobile messengers, before that most could be interfaced from different clients.

icebraining 11y ago
And yes, messengers not working with other clients is one of the most user-unfriendly things they do and something many users consider a bug. And really only has taken off with the start of mobile messengers, before that most could be interfaced from different clients. I think that's somewhat misleading. MSN Messenger, Yahoo!, etc didn't use standard protocols, it's just that people would reverse engineer them. Third-party clients did just stop working from time to time whenever the providers changed something in the protocol.
- amyjess 11y ago
  I really have to wonder what happened to all the people who used to reverse-engineer chat protocols. Did they all just give up?
  - icebraining 11y ago
    They're still around - WhatsApp has had multiple unofficial clients pop up, for example, though the company is much more heavy-handed in taking them down (DMCA takedowns against libraries that use the API, banning users of unofficial apps, etc).

niklasni1 11y ago

This is the entire point. I wish communications happened over an open protocol instead of over Twitter's protocol, not because it benefits Twitter, but because it benefits me. Email is open. For some reason people think of email as different. GMail could've provided the exact same conditions and experience when they launched, but only enabled GMail-GMail communications. It would never have got to where it is, never. And there's obviously no technical reason instant messaging, social networking, etc., should work any different, but for some reason it's perceived as different.