4 ms·

Point is: why did an open standard for direct messages not win over proprietary solutions?

• Groxx 3y ago
  They put in quite a lot of time and money to build it and make it work on a ridiculous array of devices running weird embedded OSes. Open standards hadn't. Or if you're referring to MMS: insane user cost and insane unreliability, standards mean nothing if the implementations are all trash.
  • geysersam 3y ago
    But why didn't email win over WhatsApp? Doesn't email run on all devices? Not saying it should have, just that I don't really see the difference in functionality.
    • Groxx 3y ago
      Email definitely did not. When WhatsApp was beginning its rise to domination, it was on tons of feature phones - mostly just calls, texts, and WhatsApp. Email implies a lot more general internet access than was generally supported or understood by people, since it supports arbitrary data and hosts.