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I have lived back and forth between Europe and the USA over the last few years. Communication is always the most difficult part of the move. It's a reminder of

I have lived back and forth between Europe and the USA over the last few years. Communication is always the most difficult part of the move. It's a reminder of how far off our tech is from the true ideal. In Europe, everyone has WhatsApp. For a while, this was great! One app, one "to reply" list. A taste of what messaging could be. I quickly found myself frustrated. WhatsApp relies on phone numbers, which muddies up my contacts with people who keep old numbers for WhatsApp but do SMS and calls on another. Then there was the time I switched my WhatsApp number and couldn't receive messages from anyone until I sent them a message first-- inadvertently pissing off a few friends of mine before I realized. And now, being back in the States, Europeans are trying to call the number listed on WhatsApp, and getting voicemail, and I have to change my email signature to encourage them not to. And my American colleages are sending me SMS and calling, but using my old number from last year. Verizon won't let me keep a SIM for more than a few months, so I have to pay the activation fee every year, and I can't use a different provider because I bought a Verizon branded phone (NEVER AGAIN) and I want LTE and Hotspots to work. And my mom is used to iMessage, so she sends me horribly compressed photos via SMS, no matter how often I tell her to send elsewhere. Who knows how many she tried to send to my old number... On top of all of this, I have active group chats going in WhatsApp, SMS, Slack, Discord and Facebook messenger on any given day. I always forget who said what, where. Digging up old addresses and contacts that people sent me is a nightmare. I often think about sending a mass message telling everyone to switch to ONE_PERFECT_MESSAGING_APP. I thought that might be Allo (or is it Duo? Which one is chat?). Imagine my anger if I had actually tried that! Thankfully my euro tech skeptics talked me out of it-- "I will never switch to a Google app!", they said. What can I do? I feel hopeless, trapped between tech Giants making economic decisions that hurt me, instead of working together to make our lives easier (like they claim at the beginning of this PR piece) EDIT: I don't like whining, I like solving problems-- so I created a therapy group called OOMA - Only One Messaging App - and we are going to solve this humanitarian problem. Our discord is here https://discord.gg/CmdgUp https://discord.gg/CmdgUp

mrkstu 8y ago
This is the brilliance of iMessage where it gets critical mass- fallback to SMS but pushing the iMessage identity tied to an account that follows you to new phones/devices. I think that iMessage network effect is a big reason for the steady market share growth of iPhone in the US- none of the competitive apps have cross-generational appeal, just iMessage.
- paulryanrogers 8y ago
  Wouldn't a federated solution be better though? After all email and SMS are decentralized, albeit somewhat archaic.
  - sorenjan 8y ago
    If email and SMS was invented today, they wouldn't be open and decentralized. Everything is locked and centralized nowadays, since everything is tied to accounts at companies wanting to make money of of you. It's the current state of the Internet, a world wide open network with siloed incompatible services. I'm actually contemplating ICQ, it's still around and looks no worse than any other service. Matrix might be a better solution though, it's federated and open. https://matrix.org/blog/home/ https://matrix.org/blog/home/
    - secabeen 8y ago
      Yep. 20 years ago, if you developed something cool, you open sourced it. Now, you turn it into a SAAS startup and monetize it to make your millions.
      - beagle3 8y ago
        Nostalgia isn't what it used to be. ICQ, AIM, MSN Messenger, PawWaw, Yahoo Messenger, Odigo, (and 30 more names I can't remeber) - there was a huge instant messaging war, the first stage of which was decidedly won by AOL (with AIM and the purchase of ICQ), but Microsoft later made great headway through sheer monopoly force and persistence - but that eventually became irrelevant with SMS taking over as the main form of instant messaging and then WhatsApp taking the world by storm. None of this was open source. Not a single one of the successful messengers. In fact, AOL fought alternative clients fiercely all the time, and Microsoft started fighting them as soon as they got non-trivial market share. What about XMPP (Which started life as Jabber before being standardized?)? Well, that one is open source. But it only survived and flourished because all the commercial outfits were busy fighting each other. I was tangentially involved with the failed instant messaging standardization process at the turn of the millennium, and Jabber was by far the worst technical proposal at the time -- but the process was political, and when the committee disbanded due to all the political infighting, Jabber, which didn't have the commercial interests, was the remaining option.
rayiner 8y ago
What’s wrong with iOS Messages? I can text literally everyone I know. I don’t even know what it does under the hood.
- brendanmc6 8y ago
  It's hardware specific! Most of the planet is on Android. If there is a way to do iMessage on Android, I can at least say that not many people know how.
  - balladeer 8y ago
    I think that's where Google Messages is headed unless they somehow decide to put it on other app stores.
  - prepend 8y ago
    The only “green” people I know are google employees and my mom, who can’t afford an iPhone. The solution is simple to their problem- buy an iPhone. It’s almost like the iPhone is a fetish or totem that grants access to iMessage (although you can message from macos or iCloud.com impractically). It’s quite strange how this is a very simple, solved, problem for iPhone for many years. Google can fix it by literally cloning iMessage and arguing with carriers. They don’t. I suspect it’s because they want to be the only one with access to the cleartext and they aren’t willing to make a consumer-focused decision to keep all messages ciphertext. So “most of the planet” has to suffer Google’s anti-consumer decision.
    - Latteland 8y ago
      Okay, your experience is ... not representative. In this world there are tons of people using iphones, tons of other people using android. You see both frequently. There happen to be way more people using android but it doesn't matter, because there are sizable numbers using both, we should only consider solutions that work on both.
      - prepend 8y ago
prepend 8y ago
I worked around the problem you describe by getting a google voice number and using that at the front end for my real numbers. My GV# is the face for whatsapp, telegram, whatever asks for my number. Also helps that I can send and receive sms over data or WiFi anywhere in the world. Doesn’t work with some sms gateways that don’t y’all GV, but the best international I know. Each country gets a new sim with a local number for data and local texts but I never give it out.
- brendanmc6 8y ago
  I tried this a few years ago, it only worked for American customers. But it did save me some money making calls. Last I checked they basically abandoned their mobile app for a near decade...
  - JoshuaJB 8y ago
    They revived the app sometime last year and it's back in a usable state now.
  - beagle3 8y ago
    The GV app is usable again recently - it was never really abandoned, just not given any major attention for a while. It did lose the "call back" option, which is a bummer. However, installing the Hangouts client will let you use it as a better GV app for every day use (messages/voice, for settings and stuff you still need the GV app or the GV website). At least until Hangout dies ...
  - prepend 8y ago
    The mobile app is poor, but can send texts and push text alerts to me. I think GV is limited to US numbers and you have to have a US number to sign up. It places a burden on my contacts who want to send an sms because they have to use international rates. But it’s better than not being able to text me.
beagle3 8y ago
Until you find the ultimate solution (good luck), here's my practical solution: 1) Port your US number to Google Voice for a one time fee of $25 ; from now on, you can use this number to forward to your new verizon number (also: T-Mobile had much better plans for only a few months at a time, every single time I checked). 2) Get service in Europe from an Illiad affiliated phone company; At least in the past, that included free US numbers you could forward your US google voice to freely -- as well as 15-45 days of free US roaming service. Maybe these offers are gone now - you could just pay $1/month or so to LocalPhone or a similar company to do that forwarding for you. 3) Buy the cheapest Android handset running a recent version (for security updates); I got a new Meizu m6 for ~$90, you could probably go lower for 1st hand or get a 2nd hand at $40 or so. 4) When travelling, switch SIMs between main phone and cheap phone, set up forwarding (directly if included in plan, or through LocalPhone or similar if not), and keep cheap phone on WiFi only, plugged in charging at home, and mostly accessible for when needed. 5) Use WhatsApp web on the new phone to continue using old WhatsApp number. Less than ideal - messages don't pop up - but it works well. For about $100 one time[0], and about $1/month or so, you could to keep both numbers fully functional and working indefinitely. [0] Ok, so you'll have to upgrade the cheap phone for security reasons every few years. So not exactly one time, but possible $20/year amortized, or free if you don't trade-in your old main phone and just let it rot like many people do.
zanny 8y ago
And if your "Only One Messaging App" is a monoculture proprietary product with dubious profit goals than you can count me, and large swaths of tech minded people, out. The only way forward is either Matrix or something like it. And even then you need enough momentum to bend all the walled gardens of Google / MS / FB / etc to have to play ball with a common federated protocol. Good luck getting that without the ludicrous budgets the market leaders have to throw at trying to force everyone into their own proprietary chat bubble. We almost had that in the mid 2000s and the Google jumped ship first to Hangouts. They basically started this whole mess by going from a time where MSN Messenger, Facebook Messenger, and Google Talk were all speaking the same XMPP language. Since then all three have gone total proprietary with design decisions around locking people in than providing a useful product. Some things are fine to have proprietary giants trying to fight for your eyeballs over, such as entertainment. But communication should be something we can agree on, as a society. This is the kind of thing we should have international interoperable standards on. Email was a lucky break that SMTP and IMAP ended up being mandatory, because even today Google is trying their damn hardest to implement Gmail in anything other but an interoperable way but know it would destroy their product to ever turn the compatibility off.
- brendanmc6 8y ago
  I agree. But I can think of two alternatives that you don't mention: 1. A centralized and proprietary system, but with a transparent and non-profit governance structure. I understand the costs and technical challenges of global communication are bigger than say, wikipedia... but is it impossible? 2. The power of collective action. Communications apps don't put users first because we have no bargaining power. What would they do for us if we threatened to leave, en-mass (or vice versa, if enough people offered to collectively adopt their solution?). And honestly, the problem might be better approached as a personal, social one: I don't care what the world uses, how do I get my social and professional circle to adopt one single solution? This is more what I have in mind with "Only One Messaging App". We've grown 800% in the last quarter, so keep an eye out for us :P

mrkstu 8y ago

This is the brilliance of iMessage where it gets critical mass- fallback to SMS but pushing the iMessage identity tied to an account that follows you to new phones/devices. I think that iMessage network effect is a big reason for the steady market share growth of iPhone in the US- none of the competitive apps have cross-generational appeal, just iMessage.

paulryanrogers 8y ago
Wouldn't a federated solution be better though? After all email and SMS are decentralized, albeit somewhat archaic.
- sorenjan 8y ago
  If email and SMS was invented today, they wouldn't be open and decentralized. Everything is locked and centralized nowadays, since everything is tied to accounts at companies wanting to make money of of you. It's the current state of the Internet, a world wide open network with siloed incompatible services. I'm actually contemplating ICQ, it's still around and looks no worse than any other service. Matrix might be a better solution though, it's federated and open. https://matrix.org/blog/home/ https://matrix.org/blog/home/
  - secabeen 8y ago
    Yep. 20 years ago, if you developed something cool, you open sourced it. Now, you turn it into a SAAS startup and monetize it to make your millions.
    - beagle3 8y ago
      Nostalgia isn't what it used to be. ICQ, AIM, MSN Messenger, PawWaw, Yahoo Messenger, Odigo, (and 30 more names I can't remeber) - there was a huge instant messaging war, the first stage of which was decidedly won by AOL (with AIM and the purchase of ICQ), but Microsoft later made great headway through sheer monopoly force and persistence - but that eventually became irrelevant with SMS taking over as the main form of instant messaging and then WhatsApp taking the world by storm. None of this was open source. Not a single one of the successful messengers. In fact, AOL fought alternative clients fiercely all the time, and Microsoft started fighting them as soon as they got non-trivial market share. What about XMPP (Which started life as Jabber before being standardized?)? Well, that one is open source. But it only survived and flourished because all the commercial outfits were busy fighting each other. I was tangentially involved with the failed instant messaging standardization process at the turn of the millennium, and Jabber was by far the worst technical proposal at the time -- but the process was political, and when the committee disbanded due to all the political infighting, Jabber, which didn't have the commercial interests, was the remaining option.

rayiner 8y ago

What’s wrong with iOS Messages? I can text literally everyone I know. I don’t even know what it does under the hood.

brendanmc6 8y ago
It's hardware specific! Most of the planet is on Android. If there is a way to do iMessage on Android, I can at least say that not many people know how.
- balladeer 8y ago
  I think that's where Google Messages is headed unless they somehow decide to put it on other app stores.
- prepend 8y ago
  The only “green” people I know are google employees and my mom, who can’t afford an iPhone. The solution is simple to their problem- buy an iPhone. It’s almost like the iPhone is a fetish or totem that grants access to iMessage (although you can message from macos or iCloud.com impractically). It’s quite strange how this is a very simple, solved, problem for iPhone for many years. Google can fix it by literally cloning iMessage and arguing with carriers. They don’t. I suspect it’s because they want to be the only one with access to the cleartext and they aren’t willing to make a consumer-focused decision to keep all messages ciphertext. So “most of the planet” has to suffer Google’s anti-consumer decision.
  - Latteland 8y ago
    Okay, your experience is ... not representative. In this world there are tons of people using iphones, tons of other people using android. You see both frequently. There happen to be way more people using android but it doesn't matter, because there are sizable numbers using both, we should only consider solutions that work on both.
    - prepend 8y ago

prepend 8y ago

I worked around the problem you describe by getting a google voice number and using that at the front end for my real numbers. My GV# is the face for whatsapp, telegram, whatever asks for my number. Also helps that I can send and receive sms over data or WiFi anywhere in the world. Doesn’t work with some sms gateways that don’t y’all GV, but the best international I know. Each country gets a new sim with a local number for data and local texts but I never give it out.

brendanmc6 8y ago
I tried this a few years ago, it only worked for American customers. But it did save me some money making calls. Last I checked they basically abandoned their mobile app for a near decade...
- JoshuaJB 8y ago
  They revived the app sometime last year and it's back in a usable state now.
- beagle3 8y ago
  The GV app is usable again recently - it was never really abandoned, just not given any major attention for a while. It did lose the "call back" option, which is a bummer. However, installing the Hangouts client will let you use it as a better GV app for every day use (messages/voice, for settings and stuff you still need the GV app or the GV website). At least until Hangout dies ...
- prepend 8y ago
  The mobile app is poor, but can send texts and push text alerts to me. I think GV is limited to US numbers and you have to have a US number to sign up. It places a burden on my contacts who want to send an sms because they have to use international rates. But it’s better than not being able to text me.

beagle3 8y ago

Until you find the ultimate solution (good luck), here's my practical solution: 1) Port your US number to Google Voice for a one time fee of $25 ; from now on, you can use this number to forward to your new verizon number (also: T-Mobile had much better plans for only a few months at a time, every single time I checked). 2) Get service in Europe from an Illiad affiliated phone company; At least in the past, that included free US numbers you could forward your US google voice to freely -- as well as 15-45 days of free US roaming service. Maybe these offers are gone now - you could just pay $1/month or so to LocalPhone or a similar company to do that forwarding for you. 3) Buy the cheapest Android handset running a recent version (for security updates); I got a new Meizu m6 for ~$90, you could probably go lower for 1st hand or get a 2nd hand at $40 or so. 4) When travelling, switch SIMs between main phone and cheap phone, set up forwarding (directly if included in plan, or through LocalPhone or similar if not), and keep cheap phone on WiFi only, plugged in charging at home, and mostly accessible for when needed. 5) Use WhatsApp web on the new phone to continue using old WhatsApp number. Less than ideal - messages don't pop up - but it works well. For about $100 one time[0], and about $1/month or so, you could to keep both numbers fully functional and working indefinitely. [0] Ok, so you'll have to upgrade the cheap phone for security reasons every few years. So not exactly one time, but possible $20/year amortized, or free if you don't trade-in your old main phone and just let it rot like many people do.

zanny 8y ago

And if your "Only One Messaging App" is a monoculture proprietary product with dubious profit goals than you can count me, and large swaths of tech minded people, out. The only way forward is either Matrix or something like it. And even then you need enough momentum to bend all the walled gardens of Google / MS / FB / etc to have to play ball with a common federated protocol. Good luck getting that without the ludicrous budgets the market leaders have to throw at trying to force everyone into their own proprietary chat bubble. We almost had that in the mid 2000s and the Google jumped ship first to Hangouts. They basically started this whole mess by going from a time where MSN Messenger, Facebook Messenger, and Google Talk were all speaking the same XMPP language. Since then all three have gone total proprietary with design decisions around locking people in than providing a useful product. Some things are fine to have proprietary giants trying to fight for your eyeballs over, such as entertainment. But communication should be something we can agree on, as a society. This is the kind of thing we should have international interoperable standards on. Email was a lucky break that SMTP and IMAP ended up being mandatory, because even today Google is trying their damn hardest to implement Gmail in anything other but an interoperable way but know it would destroy their product to ever turn the compatibility off.

brendanmc6 8y ago
I agree. But I can think of two alternatives that you don't mention: 1. A centralized and proprietary system, but with a transparent and non-profit governance structure. I understand the costs and technical challenges of global communication are bigger than say, wikipedia... but is it impossible? 2. The power of collective action. Communications apps don't put users first because we have no bargaining power. What would they do for us if we threatened to leave, en-mass (or vice versa, if enough people offered to collectively adopt their solution?). And honestly, the problem might be better approached as a personal, social one: I don't care what the world uses, how do I get my social and professional circle to adopt one single solution? This is more what I have in mind with "Only One Messaging App". We've grown 800% in the last quarter, so keep an eye out for us :P