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I miss dedicated IM services like AIM. They had a certain dynamic that Facebook Messenger (or similar) and SMS lack. On AIM, logging in was an active choice an

I miss dedicated IM services like AIM. They had a certain dynamic that Facebook Messenger (or similar) and SMS lack. On AIM, logging in was an active choice and it signaled that you were up for a conversation. With Facebook Messenger, everyone who has the app is always "online." This means that: a) I get messages from people I don't want to have a conversation with at the moment and it seems rude if I ignore them, because there are read receipts. b) If I send a message, I don't know if they're going to engage in a real-time conversation or if we're going to play phone tag. There's no way of signaling which I'm looking for.

deleted 9y ago
[deleted]
Jaruzel 9y ago
What you are lamenting the lack of is the 'presence' indicator, where you can set yourself Available, Away, Busy, or simply Offline. Of the current crop of IM clients, only Skype still has it (I think). Of the older IM clients; Lync had it, so did Lotus Sametime, MSN Messenger, Yahoo Messenger, ICQ, and of course AIM. Somewhere along the line the presence feature got dropped, and now we're always 'Available' even when we're not.
- philsnow 9y ago
  This completely supports the idea that when you use a free service, you are not the customer. Away/busy messages and invisibility are comforts for users. They go away when execs see that doing so bumps some (probably bullshit anyway) "engagement" metric by 5%.
- sfotm 9y ago
  Discord has presence indicators and is fairly widespread.
- marindez 9y ago
  >Somewhere along the line the presence feature got dropped, and now we're always 'Available' even when we're not. Before you were only available when you had your PC on, you were connected to the Internet, and your IM program was open. Now you carry your perpetually running IM program in your perpetually on and perpetually connected mobile in your pocket.
  - visarga 9y ago
    In other words, better is worse, New Jersey style.
- snarkyturtle 9y ago
  Slack has an 'online indicator' and even AIM-style away messages.
  - daturkel 9y ago
    But slack also has no inherently established paradigm of real time vs asynchronous communication.
Chathamization 9y ago
On top of that, I feel like many people view the chat as subservient to the main feature of Facebook (sharing and commenting on articles, pictures, and personal rants). The last few times I attempted to have conversations with people on Facebook chat, people seemed happy but somewhat surprised, chatted for a little bit, and then the conversation quickly died (and no attempt was made to revive it).
gh02t 9y ago
> With Facebook Messenger, everyone who has the app is always "online." Not exactly, FBM lets you differentiate between people who are "active", as in they are currently using FBM, vs. "last seen x hours ago." The difference from AIM is that being active vs. inactive does not necessarily correspond to whether or not you are up for an engaged conversation, and also that you don't directly control your status since it's automatic. There is also a way to set yourself to appear offline, though it's kinda convoluted. I 100% agree though that finer controls over your status like back in the good old days of AIM would be really nice.
- pishpash 9y ago
  It is not convoluted, just hidden. After you mention it I searched and it takes two clicks to get to. What it doesn't do is let you snoop. You are either active and see everyone who is active, or not active and don't see anyone who is active, a weird type of "fairness" that doesn't really make sense. All these social networks are definitely trying to use symmetry to push for engagement, which is not always the goal from the user's perspective.
  - deleted 9y ago
    [deleted]
  - likelynew 9y ago
    I think a large part on why Truecaller is so successful is because of the same model. It is slightly worse, as by default a user is visible.
    - skinnymuch 9y ago
      I'm not doubting it, but in what way is Truecaller so successful? Never heard of it.
  - skinnymuch 9y ago
    Why do you find the "fairness" not making sense? Seems to make sense to me. Telegram has the same feature for showing how many hours ago someone was active.

deleted 9y ago

[deleted]

Jaruzel 9y ago

What you are lamenting the lack of is the 'presence' indicator, where you can set yourself Available, Away, Busy, or simply Offline. Of the current crop of IM clients, only Skype still has it (I think). Of the older IM clients; Lync had it, so did Lotus Sametime, MSN Messenger, Yahoo Messenger, ICQ, and of course AIM. Somewhere along the line the presence feature got dropped, and now we're always 'Available' even when we're not.

philsnow 9y ago
This completely supports the idea that when you use a free service, you are not the customer. Away/busy messages and invisibility are comforts for users. They go away when execs see that doing so bumps some (probably bullshit anyway) "engagement" metric by 5%.
sfotm 9y ago
Discord has presence indicators and is fairly widespread.
marindez 9y ago
>Somewhere along the line the presence feature got dropped, and now we're always 'Available' even when we're not. Before you were only available when you had your PC on, you were connected to the Internet, and your IM program was open. Now you carry your perpetually running IM program in your perpetually on and perpetually connected mobile in your pocket.
- visarga 9y ago
  In other words, better is worse, New Jersey style.
snarkyturtle 9y ago
Slack has an 'online indicator' and even AIM-style away messages.
- daturkel 9y ago
  But slack also has no inherently established paradigm of real time vs asynchronous communication.

Chathamization 9y ago

On top of that, I feel like many people view the chat as subservient to the main feature of Facebook (sharing and commenting on articles, pictures, and personal rants). The last few times I attempted to have conversations with people on Facebook chat, people seemed happy but somewhat surprised, chatted for a little bit, and then the conversation quickly died (and no attempt was made to revive it).

gh02t 9y ago

> With Facebook Messenger, everyone who has the app is always "online." Not exactly, FBM lets you differentiate between people who are "active", as in they are currently using FBM, vs. "last seen x hours ago." The difference from AIM is that being active vs. inactive does not necessarily correspond to whether or not you are up for an engaged conversation, and also that you don't directly control your status since it's automatic. There is also a way to set yourself to appear offline, though it's kinda convoluted. I 100% agree though that finer controls over your status like back in the good old days of AIM would be really nice.

pishpash 9y ago
It is not convoluted, just hidden. After you mention it I searched and it takes two clicks to get to. What it doesn't do is let you snoop. You are either active and see everyone who is active, or not active and don't see anyone who is active, a weird type of "fairness" that doesn't really make sense. All these social networks are definitely trying to use symmetry to push for engagement, which is not always the goal from the user's perspective.
- deleted 9y ago
  [deleted]
- likelynew 9y ago
  I think a large part on why Truecaller is so successful is because of the same model. It is slightly worse, as by default a user is visible.
  - skinnymuch 9y ago
    I'm not doubting it, but in what way is Truecaller so successful? Never heard of it.
- skinnymuch 9y ago
  Why do you find the "fairness" not making sense? Seems to make sense to me. Telegram has the same feature for showing how many hours ago someone was active.