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It is interesting that the comments on the Twitter thread are "Just use WhatsApp". Which is basically iMessage but from Facebook. Comparing two, the vendor lock

It is interesting that the comments on the Twitter thread are "Just use WhatsApp". Which is basically iMessage but from Facebook. Comparing two, the vendor lock-in from Apple seems much preferable to the one with Facebook in light of the data scandals Facebook has and their ongoing effort to backdoor WhatsApp and integrate it with FB messenger etc. Also a group message is only as secure as its most weakly encrypted member and sms definitely loses there vs iMessage. I would rather have Apple win the network effect here vs another data pimp like Google (who, ads aside, can't be trusted to maintain any communication platform). I would much rather this all be standardized with end to end encryption protocols. (C'mon Signal!)

danpalmer 7y ago
In Europe WhatsApp was huge well before Facebook purchased them. From my own experience, the product has barely changed since then, so I don't really feel like it's a Facebook product (yet), and so while I dislike using Facebook services WhatApp is basically fine for now. Almost everyone I know uses WhatsApp. Funnily enough my family are the only ones who don't, and use iMessage instead. This isn't an active choice though, it's that they are on an iPhone and using SMS, so they get iMessage by default. This is a long way of saying that for many Europeans, "Just use WhatsApp" feels like an obvious response, why wouldn't you?
- pcmoney 7y ago
  It is 100% a Facebook product. It is FB. I 100% guarantee all data mined from your WhatsApp account is linked either to your FB account or your shadow FB account if you never signed up. Sure maybe the "experience" hasn't changed from a UI standpoint but FB is weakening WhatsApp's end to end encryption and mining your conversations so under the hood the experience is radically different. There is a reason the founders of WhatsApp quit FB post acquisition (literally leaving hundreds of millions of dollars behind) in disgust over the privacy abuses Facebook was proposing. https://www.cnbc.com/2018/09/26/whatsapp-co-founder-explains-why-he-left-facebook.html https://www.cnbc.com/2018/09/26/whatsapp-co-founder-explains...
  - dajohnson89 7y ago
    is there any evidence of WhatsApp conversations being monitored?
    - pcmoney 7y ago
      Last I checked: Actual text of convo: not yet but soon. Metadata: yes.
      - sidr 7y ago
        So you believe whatsapp is not e2e encrypted? Or they're going to roll it back?
        kefabean 7y ago
        They don’t need to roll-back the E2E encryption, they can just access the data right there on the device after it’s decrypted and upload data back to FB via a sidecar. It will start with basic mining of content on the device with ‘anonymous’ summary or aggregate data being uploaded but it’s a slippery slope...
        deleted 7y ago
        [deleted]
    - sodosopa 7y ago
      would you trust Facebook after the many ways they've sold your data?
      - bryan_w 7y ago
        Facebook doesn't sell data
        sodosopa 7y ago
        https://www.bbc.com/news/technology-46618582 https://www.bbc.com/news/technology-46618582
- bonestamp2 7y ago
  > I don't really feel like it's a Facebook product (yet) Agreed. When they purchased it, people were obviously concerned, so they promised not to combine it with Facebook Messenger. But, at their F8 conference this year they announced they are going to unify them. So you're right when you say it doesn't feel like a facebook product yet. But, I guess it probably will at some point. I think we all knew this was coming though -- there's not much point in purchasing it if they're not going to leverage it one day.
- throw0101a 7y ago
  > In Europe WhatsApp was huge well before Facebook purchased them. FB purchased them because they were huge.
danfang 7y ago
I don't know if this is too self promoting, but I'm part of the YC SUS 2019 program and I'm building a product that addresses the issue of messaging lock in, as well as data privacy. I'm building Thread - an ad-free, private social network for groups. It's an alternative to Facebook (Messenger and WhatsApp), iMessage and GroupMe. It's the best way to connect with, share content to, and interact with the people in your life. It's a limited release right now (still in alpha), but please sign up and check it out at https://thread-app.com/register https://thread-app.com/register. EDIT: it only is available on desktop web at the moment to US based users. Anything else will most likely give you an error. E2E encryption is something we are considering building. Right now, the promise is no-ads, no front-end tracking, and no selling data to third parties. Happy to chat more about it and answer any questions (maybe this isn't an appropriate place for that discussion).
- danpalmer 7y ago
  FYI, the website is broken in Safari. Syntax error in the JS, totally blank page.
- davidy123 7y ago
  Site is currently broken. Are you using ActivityPub &c? Even if it is somewhat bulky, these linked data standards are the way to ensure you are creating the most open, reusable data possible on the largest stage.
- danpalmer 7y ago
  Sounds like a great idea. I'm a huge +1 to E2E encryption and mobile support – I'm looking for something good to replace WhatsApp. Minor bit of very biased feedback – the name "Thread" is quite overloaded. Thread (my employer) is a clothing recommendation service, ThreadsStyling is a luxury fashion concierge, Thread Group are an IoT specification, Open Thread is an implementation of that spec I believe.
  - danfang 7y ago
    Yeah, I figured it was. I'm quite open to a name change (http://www.paulgraham.com/name.html http://www.paulgraham.com/name.html). I have some ideas in mind. Thread is temporary at the moment.
damnyou 7y ago
WhatsApp doesn't make you buy $750 dongles and force itself onto the rest of your life in order to communicate with your friends.
- pcmoney 7y ago
  It does sell your data and is not secure. What $750 dongle? You can get an iPhone for like $300 these days. Forces itself into your life? How? Apple's data security is better than literally every other smart phone provider and its OS is fundamentally less intrusive than Android.
  - damnyou 7y ago
    You are forced to buy apps from Apple if you want to use iMessage. Forced to use Apple's crappy voice software. Forced to use Apple's crappy TV box if you want to mirror your screen.
    - pcmoney 7y ago
      But the flip side of all those choices are all massive privacy invasions or security risks. Apple App Store is a walled Garden but the Banking App you get from the Apple Store is guaranteed to be the actual app from the bank it says it is. (https://www.forbes.com/sites/zakdoffman/2019/06/24/google-play-hosts-thousands-of-malware-riddled-copycat-apps-ai-study-finds/#6c99073766d9 https://www.forbes.com/sites/zakdoffman/2019/06/24/google-pl...) Plus the apps on the App Store are often of much higher quality than the Google Play store because of how much more revenue app developers can make on the Apple Store and the better demographics there for most company's targeted audiences. Apple's voice software is worse because it doesn't do as much machine learning off device and it doesn't try to learn as much about you and communicate it home. I haven't found any "TV box" to work all that well with a phone. AppleTV does seem to be comparable to others. These are all trade-offs and subject to the individuals preferences. But saying Non-Apple products don't also "force you" or have trade-offs is misleading.
      - damnyou 7y ago
joekrill 7y ago
The most significant difference is that WhatsApp is at least platform independent. iMessage simply is not an option on Android - it's limited to iPhone users only and it doesn't seem like Apple has any intention of changing that. WhatsApp, on the other hand, can be used by whoever wants to download it. It's still vendor lock-in. Just not to the same extent.
- asclepi 7y ago
  iMessage reverts to SMS when the recipient doesn't have an iPhone. All within the same app. To what does Whatsapp revert when the recipient doesn't have Whatsapp?
  - foobarchu 7y ago
    Reverting to SMS is the problem, though. It gives participants the illusion that the conversation can be extended to anyone, but once they find out that the platform loses features and degrades with the addition of an android participant, that person is excluded so that the rest can keep using the full-featured platform. The suggestion of WhatsApp is so that everyone can use their own phone and have full features. If someone wants to join the chat, then its on them to get on board with what everyone else wants.
    - asclepi 7y ago
      > If someone wants to join the chat, then its on them to get on board with what everyone else wants. However, when a community of people chooses Whatsapp as the exclusive form of communication, everyone in that community is forced to get that app or be left out of the loop. Those who object to installing Whatsapp because of the serious privacy controversies surrounding its parent are left with no choice. This is where Messages shines, as it doesn't exclude those who can't or don't want to get an Apple device. And while the SMS fallback is indeed degraded, it still fulfills its basic promise: quick textual exchange of information. Additionally, if the recipient does get excluded because of the degraded experience, it shifts the fault and liability for not-knowing from the recipient who didn't want to accept the WhatsApp TOS to the senders who didn't provide the information because they didn't like the green bubble, although I'm fully aware that that's not how it always plays out in reality. Neither approach is ideal, but I believe it's more important that no one should feel forced to install a proprietary app they don't trust just so they can stay up to date with their community, even if they are the single person objecting. TL;DR Even though it falls back to its most rudimentary form, Messages by default doesn't cut off people that don't bring in any money for its parent. WhatsApp does.
HNcantBtrustd 7y ago
Apple vs Facebook? I'll stick with sms
- Jonnax 7y ago
  Your mobile phone operator likely has no problem just straight up selling your data. And also it goes pretty much in the clear through the global SMS network.

danpalmer 7y ago

In Europe WhatsApp was huge well before Facebook purchased them. From my own experience, the product has barely changed since then, so I don't really feel like it's a Facebook product (yet), and so while I dislike using Facebook services WhatApp is basically fine for now. Almost everyone I know uses WhatsApp. Funnily enough my family are the only ones who don't, and use iMessage instead. This isn't an active choice though, it's that they are on an iPhone and using SMS, so they get iMessage by default. This is a long way of saying that for many Europeans, "Just use WhatsApp" feels like an obvious response, why wouldn't you?

pcmoney 7y ago
It is 100% a Facebook product. It is FB. I 100% guarantee all data mined from your WhatsApp account is linked either to your FB account or your shadow FB account if you never signed up. Sure maybe the "experience" hasn't changed from a UI standpoint but FB is weakening WhatsApp's end to end encryption and mining your conversations so under the hood the experience is radically different. There is a reason the founders of WhatsApp quit FB post acquisition (literally leaving hundreds of millions of dollars behind) in disgust over the privacy abuses Facebook was proposing. https://www.cnbc.com/2018/09/26/whatsapp-co-founder-explains-why-he-left-facebook.html https://www.cnbc.com/2018/09/26/whatsapp-co-founder-explains...
- dajohnson89 7y ago
  is there any evidence of WhatsApp conversations being monitored?
  - pcmoney 7y ago
    Last I checked: Actual text of convo: not yet but soon. Metadata: yes.
    - sidr 7y ago
      So you believe whatsapp is not e2e encrypted? Or they're going to roll it back?
      - kefabean 7y ago
        They don’t need to roll-back the E2E encryption, they can just access the data right there on the device after it’s decrypted and upload data back to FB via a sidecar. It will start with basic mining of content on the device with ‘anonymous’ summary or aggregate data being uploaded but it’s a slippery slope...
        deleted 7y ago
        [deleted]
  - sodosopa 7y ago
    would you trust Facebook after the many ways they've sold your data?
    - bryan_w 7y ago
      Facebook doesn't sell data
      - sodosopa 7y ago
        https://www.bbc.com/news/technology-46618582 https://www.bbc.com/news/technology-46618582
bonestamp2 7y ago
> I don't really feel like it's a Facebook product (yet) Agreed. When they purchased it, people were obviously concerned, so they promised not to combine it with Facebook Messenger. But, at their F8 conference this year they announced they are going to unify them. So you're right when you say it doesn't feel like a facebook product yet. But, I guess it probably will at some point. I think we all knew this was coming though -- there's not much point in purchasing it if they're not going to leverage it one day.
throw0101a 7y ago
> In Europe WhatsApp was huge well before Facebook purchased them. FB purchased them because they were huge.

danfang 7y ago

I don't know if this is too self promoting, but I'm part of the YC SUS 2019 program and I'm building a product that addresses the issue of messaging lock in, as well as data privacy. I'm building Thread - an ad-free, private social network for groups. It's an alternative to Facebook (Messenger and WhatsApp), iMessage and GroupMe. It's the best way to connect with, share content to, and interact with the people in your life. It's a limited release right now (still in alpha), but please sign up and check it out at https://thread-app.com/register https://thread-app.com/register. EDIT: it only is available on desktop web at the moment to US based users. Anything else will most likely give you an error. E2E encryption is something we are considering building. Right now, the promise is no-ads, no front-end tracking, and no selling data to third parties. Happy to chat more about it and answer any questions (maybe this isn't an appropriate place for that discussion).

danpalmer 7y ago
FYI, the website is broken in Safari. Syntax error in the JS, totally blank page.
davidy123 7y ago
Site is currently broken. Are you using ActivityPub &c? Even if it is somewhat bulky, these linked data standards are the way to ensure you are creating the most open, reusable data possible on the largest stage.
danpalmer 7y ago
Sounds like a great idea. I'm a huge +1 to E2E encryption and mobile support – I'm looking for something good to replace WhatsApp. Minor bit of very biased feedback – the name "Thread" is quite overloaded. Thread (my employer) is a clothing recommendation service, ThreadsStyling is a luxury fashion concierge, Thread Group are an IoT specification, Open Thread is an implementation of that spec I believe.
- danfang 7y ago
  Yeah, I figured it was. I'm quite open to a name change (http://www.paulgraham.com/name.html http://www.paulgraham.com/name.html). I have some ideas in mind. Thread is temporary at the moment.

damnyou 7y ago

WhatsApp doesn't make you buy $750 dongles and force itself onto the rest of your life in order to communicate with your friends.

pcmoney 7y ago
It does sell your data and is not secure. What $750 dongle? You can get an iPhone for like $300 these days. Forces itself into your life? How? Apple's data security is better than literally every other smart phone provider and its OS is fundamentally less intrusive than Android.
- damnyou 7y ago
  You are forced to buy apps from Apple if you want to use iMessage. Forced to use Apple's crappy voice software. Forced to use Apple's crappy TV box if you want to mirror your screen.
  - pcmoney 7y ago
    But the flip side of all those choices are all massive privacy invasions or security risks. Apple App Store is a walled Garden but the Banking App you get from the Apple Store is guaranteed to be the actual app from the bank it says it is. (https://www.forbes.com/sites/zakdoffman/2019/06/24/google-play-hosts-thousands-of-malware-riddled-copycat-apps-ai-study-finds/#6c99073766d9 https://www.forbes.com/sites/zakdoffman/2019/06/24/google-pl...) Plus the apps on the App Store are often of much higher quality than the Google Play store because of how much more revenue app developers can make on the Apple Store and the better demographics there for most company's targeted audiences. Apple's voice software is worse because it doesn't do as much machine learning off device and it doesn't try to learn as much about you and communicate it home. I haven't found any "TV box" to work all that well with a phone. AppleTV does seem to be comparable to others. These are all trade-offs and subject to the individuals preferences. But saying Non-Apple products don't also "force you" or have trade-offs is misleading.
    - damnyou 7y ago

joekrill 7y ago

The most significant difference is that WhatsApp is at least platform independent. iMessage simply is not an option on Android - it's limited to iPhone users only and it doesn't seem like Apple has any intention of changing that. WhatsApp, on the other hand, can be used by whoever wants to download it. It's still vendor lock-in. Just not to the same extent.

asclepi 7y ago
iMessage reverts to SMS when the recipient doesn't have an iPhone. All within the same app. To what does Whatsapp revert when the recipient doesn't have Whatsapp?
- foobarchu 7y ago
  Reverting to SMS is the problem, though. It gives participants the illusion that the conversation can be extended to anyone, but once they find out that the platform loses features and degrades with the addition of an android participant, that person is excluded so that the rest can keep using the full-featured platform. The suggestion of WhatsApp is so that everyone can use their own phone and have full features. If someone wants to join the chat, then its on them to get on board with what everyone else wants.
  - asclepi 7y ago
    > If someone wants to join the chat, then its on them to get on board with what everyone else wants. However, when a community of people chooses Whatsapp as the exclusive form of communication, everyone in that community is forced to get that app or be left out of the loop. Those who object to installing Whatsapp because of the serious privacy controversies surrounding its parent are left with no choice. This is where Messages shines, as it doesn't exclude those who can't or don't want to get an Apple device. And while the SMS fallback is indeed degraded, it still fulfills its basic promise: quick textual exchange of information. Additionally, if the recipient does get excluded because of the degraded experience, it shifts the fault and liability for not-knowing from the recipient who didn't want to accept the WhatsApp TOS to the senders who didn't provide the information because they didn't like the green bubble, although I'm fully aware that that's not how it always plays out in reality. Neither approach is ideal, but I believe it's more important that no one should feel forced to install a proprietary app they don't trust just so they can stay up to date with their community, even if they are the single person objecting. TL;DR Even though it falls back to its most rudimentary form, Messages by default doesn't cut off people that don't bring in any money for its parent. WhatsApp does.

HNcantBtrustd 7y ago

Apple vs Facebook? I'll stick with sms

Jonnax 7y ago
Your mobile phone operator likely has no problem just straight up selling your data. And also it goes pretty much in the clear through the global SMS network.