3 ms·
Why is anyone using Facebook for chat at all? (Real question)
by chrisdbaldwin 10y ago
Why is anyone using Facebook for chat at all? (Real question)
- jrochkind1 10y agobecause many of their friends they want to chat with are.
- eachro 10y agoBecause a lot of people use it for chat. The network effect is powerful.
- dingo_bat 10y agoBecause everyone has it. And it doesn't need a phone number. So it's almost as ubiquitous as SMS, without distributing your phone number. Win-win.
- chrisdbaldwin 10y agoSo if its main selling point is being ubiquitous, why the fuck wouldn't they force everyone to the same platform?
- yellowapple 10y agoI have the opposite question: if its main selling point is being ubiquitous, why the fuck wouldn't they want to maximize the number of ways users can access it so that it stays, you know, ubiquitous?
- dingo_bat 10y agoYup, because they're idiots and it's moves like this that will allow an upstart to steal all the market.
- anentropic 10y agohow often do you want to chat with someone you wouldn't give your phone number to though? if they can call you via messenger anyway, where is the win in them not having your phone number?
- dingo_bat 10y agoIt is much easier to block someone on messenger than go through the carrier to get them to block a number.
- zem 10y agobecause it's very well designed. it gets casual asynchronous messaging right in a lot of ways. unlike email, threads are grouped by person rather than by subject line, which makes it a lot lower friction (subject lines are for talking about something; they're a usability drawback when you're primarily talking to someone). unlike sms, you don't have to maintain a person->id mapping yourself, it's done globally and kept constantly up to date by facebook. unlike whatsapp, it's not tied to your phone; you just need to know your username and password to access it from any browser-capable device. and finally, it supports notifications via a variety of mechanisms, and even if you don't enable any of them (i don't), most people who use facebook check it regularly anyway, so you get to see the little "you have new messages" icon each time you go to read your stream.