5 ms·

Its sad to see the world of text/instant messaging devolving back to the 90s. It felt like the future was so bright not that long ago. I've basically stopped us

by mkhpalm 11y ago

Its sad to see the world of text/instant messaging devolving back to the 90s. It felt like the future was so bright not that long ago. I've basically stopped using instant messages all together and switched to an even more proprietary/archaic system (SMS). It is the only thing left that can communicate with everybody.

tracker1 11y ago
I use Hangouts, but that's mainly because it integrates Google Voice, which I've had since it was Grand Central and even then, I mostly do SMS with it (including desktop). It's actually really sad to see these events... one of my favorite things in the late 90's and early 00's was actually the voice chat rooms in Yahoo messenger, but the bots ruined that platform... it was proprietary, but it was fun. These days, it's pretty much SMS only for me... I don't need an app that only works on my phone, not my desktop, and actively spies on me, and sucks my battery life. I do have skype which I use sometimes, mostly for those that I talk to overseas on rare occassion. I had high hopes that XMPP or a decent replacement would evolve that actually worked well... same goes for Diaspora and a bunch of other things though. In the end people like their walled gardens. :-(
- ryukafalz 11y ago
  >I had high hopes that XMPP or a decent replacement would evolve that actually worked well Matrix (http://matrix.org/ http://matrix.org/) is getting there. It does work well, though it's still in early (and active) development.
welly 11y ago
> I've basically stopped using instant messages all together and switched to an even more proprietary/archaic system (SMS) You and me both. I don't have space on my phone for every individual messaging app that my various friends use. "Have you got whatsapp?" No "Do you use Kik?" No etc.
jfim 11y ago
Of all the systems to transmit messages, SMS is probably the least proprietary. Do you even need to ask your recipient what carrier they're using or do you just punch in their number and text away? Does it work regardless of what brand of mobile phone they have? Does it work even if their phone is temporarily disconnected from the network?
- thaumasiotes 11y ago
  > Do you even need to ask your recipient what carrier they're using or do you just punch in their number and text away? Does it work regardless of what brand of mobile phone they have? Does it work even if their phone is temporarily disconnected from the network? WeChat has all of those features, but I don't think anyone would regard it as other than proprietary...
- okatsu 11y ago
  The SMS protocols are indeed not proprietary (all the specs are online) but you'll either need a contract with an aggregator or with every mobile network operator you'd like to send traffic to. Not very handy. :)
jlg23 11y ago
> [SMS] is the only thing left that can communicate with everybody. Except for when it does not. More often than not carriers don't return the correct status codes, marking messages as delivered when in fact the recipient does not even have SMS enabled in their contract. This gets even worse with international messages that can be routed through multiple carriers' networks until they reach (or don't) their final destination.

by mkhpalm 11y ago

tracker1 11y ago

I use Hangouts, but that's mainly because it integrates Google Voice, which I've had since it was Grand Central and even then, I mostly do SMS with it (including desktop). It's actually really sad to see these events... one of my favorite things in the late 90's and early 00's was actually the voice chat rooms in Yahoo messenger, but the bots ruined that platform... it was proprietary, but it was fun. These days, it's pretty much SMS only for me... I don't need an app that only works on my phone, not my desktop, and actively spies on me, and sucks my battery life. I do have skype which I use sometimes, mostly for those that I talk to overseas on rare occassion. I had high hopes that XMPP or a decent replacement would evolve that actually worked well... same goes for Diaspora and a bunch of other things though. In the end people like their walled gardens. :-(

ryukafalz 11y ago
>I had high hopes that XMPP or a decent replacement would evolve that actually worked well Matrix (http://matrix.org/ http://matrix.org/) is getting there. It does work well, though it's still in early (and active) development.

welly 11y ago

> I've basically stopped using instant messages all together and switched to an even more proprietary/archaic system (SMS) You and me both. I don't have space on my phone for every individual messaging app that my various friends use. "Have you got whatsapp?" No "Do you use Kik?" No etc.

jfim 11y ago

Of all the systems to transmit messages, SMS is probably the least proprietary. Do you even need to ask your recipient what carrier they're using or do you just punch in their number and text away? Does it work regardless of what brand of mobile phone they have? Does it work even if their phone is temporarily disconnected from the network?

thaumasiotes 11y ago
> Do you even need to ask your recipient what carrier they're using or do you just punch in their number and text away? Does it work regardless of what brand of mobile phone they have? Does it work even if their phone is temporarily disconnected from the network? WeChat has all of those features, but I don't think anyone would regard it as other than proprietary...
okatsu 11y ago
The SMS protocols are indeed not proprietary (all the specs are online) but you'll either need a contract with an aggregator or with every mobile network operator you'd like to send traffic to. Not very handy. :)

jlg23 11y ago

> [SMS] is the only thing left that can communicate with everybody. Except for when it does not. More often than not carriers don't return the correct status codes, marking messages as delivered when in fact the recipient does not even have SMS enabled in their contract. This gets even worse with international messages that can be routed through multiple carriers' networks until they reach (or don't) their final destination.