Network effects are huge. People are on Facebook/Instagram/Twitter/etc. because other people are on them. The control over the network is of paramount importa

Network effects are huge. People are on Facebook/Instagram/Twitter/etc. because other people are on them. The control over the network is of paramount importance to those companies, and they do not want to give it up. They don't want an open chat protocol. They want their branded experience with their specific font and their specific shade of blue (and it's always blue - Facebook, Twitter, Skype, it doesn't matter, it's always blue). Microsoft tried to build People-centric experiences with the short-lived MyPeople experience: https://www.pcworld.com/article/3216489/windows-10s-my-people-microsoft-makes-it-easy-to-just-wave-hello.html https://www.pcworld.com/article/3216489/windows-10s-my-peopl... In the end, while the UX mocks were grand and there was the potential for some interesting flows, it was impossible to get the platforms interested. They don't WANT your contact list to sync to your device and integrate in your OS surfaces, they want to own that data.