4 ms·

Depending on where you live, almost nobody is on iMessage to begin with. Almost all of the noise around iMessage and beeper is US-centric yet even in the US mos

Depending on where you live, almost nobody is on iMessage to begin with. Almost all of the noise around iMessage and beeper is US-centric yet even in the US most people are using FB Messenger and not iMessage. Yet we don't see Beeper supporting FB messenger. Or Beeper supporting WhatsApp. Because those networks don't allow third party clients either, which makes sense since the owners of those networks get to dictate their own usage rules.

bogwog 3y ago
> Yet we don't see Beeper supporting FB messenger. Or Beeper supporting WhatsApp. Beeper does in fact support those (and more), also through reverse engineering efforts. See: https://help.beeper.com/en_US/chat-networks https://help.beeper.com/en_US/chat-networks They're trying to innovate in the space by building a single interface to multiple services, but anticompetitive action from Apple (and others, I assume) is preventing that from happening. It seems to me like an obvious thing to regulate. The benefit to consumers is obvious too.
- solardev 3y ago
  Didn't we already go through this whole era with Trillian?
- oneplane 3y ago
  Except that those networks are listed to pad the functionality of the app, not because they actually work the way they should. FB for example: Stories/Reels/Posts Sharing: Not supported. End-to-end encrypted chats: Not supported WhatsApp: Will view only once messages feature work the same way like it does on WhatsApp? No. Currently we don’t track when users open media and hence cannot support it in a similar fashion. Such messages will remain on Beeper as any other encrypted message. In theory this could all be added later on, reverse-engineered later on etc. but in reality this is much more likely to become a niche or fail outright. Threema and the likes have survived for so long because they don't try to break into third party systems. It's not a new concept, and cat-and-mouse with third party servers has always been an unsuccessful avenue.
  - bogwog 3y ago
    > cat-and-mouse with third party servers has always been an unsuccessful avenue. Hence the political efforts. If Apple can be forced to enable interop, everyone else can be too.
    - oneplane 3y ago
      But why? Why should anyone providing a service be forced to also allow others to represent that service? Shouldn't it be up to the service owner to figure out what they want to do with it? The only reasoning behind the whole iMessage thing seems to stem from a specific age band of Americans that value others based on the background color of their messages. This is a human problem, not a technology problem.
      - bogwog 3y ago
        > But why? Why should anyone providing a service be forced to also allow others to represent that service? Shouldn't it be up to the service owner to figure out what they want to do with it? Why should service providers be forced to police CSAM and hate speech? Because it makes sense to weigh individual freedoms against the cost to society. (and keep in mind that Apple is a publicly traded company) The cost of walled gardens are that they harm consumers. Consumers need to spend more money to overcome artificial barriers designed only to increase the amount of money they spend without offering any value. Interoperability for commodity tech like this is an obvious win for the economy. > The only reasoning behind the whole iMessage thing seems to stem from a specific age band of Americans that value others based on the background color of their messages. This is a human problem, not a technology problem. If that's really what you think this is about, then you haven't been paying attention to any of the discussions on the topic. Or you're doing the thing internet people do where you're being disingenuous just to win an argument.

bogwog 3y ago

> Yet we don't see Beeper supporting FB messenger. Or Beeper supporting WhatsApp. Beeper does in fact support those (and more), also through reverse engineering efforts. See: https://help.beeper.com/en_US/chat-networks https://help.beeper.com/en_US/chat-networks They're trying to innovate in the space by building a single interface to multiple services, but anticompetitive action from Apple (and others, I assume) is preventing that from happening. It seems to me like an obvious thing to regulate. The benefit to consumers is obvious too.

solardev 3y ago
Didn't we already go through this whole era with Trillian?
oneplane 3y ago
Except that those networks are listed to pad the functionality of the app, not because they actually work the way they should. FB for example: Stories/Reels/Posts Sharing: Not supported. End-to-end encrypted chats: Not supported WhatsApp: Will view only once messages feature work the same way like it does on WhatsApp? No. Currently we don’t track when users open media and hence cannot support it in a similar fashion. Such messages will remain on Beeper as any other encrypted message. In theory this could all be added later on, reverse-engineered later on etc. but in reality this is much more likely to become a niche or fail outright. Threema and the likes have survived for so long because they don't try to break into third party systems. It's not a new concept, and cat-and-mouse with third party servers has always been an unsuccessful avenue.
- bogwog 3y ago
  > cat-and-mouse with third party servers has always been an unsuccessful avenue. Hence the political efforts. If Apple can be forced to enable interop, everyone else can be too.
  - oneplane 3y ago
    But why? Why should anyone providing a service be forced to also allow others to represent that service? Shouldn't it be up to the service owner to figure out what they want to do with it? The only reasoning behind the whole iMessage thing seems to stem from a specific age band of Americans that value others based on the background color of their messages. This is a human problem, not a technology problem.
    - bogwog 3y ago
      > But why? Why should anyone providing a service be forced to also allow others to represent that service? Shouldn't it be up to the service owner to figure out what they want to do with it? Why should service providers be forced to police CSAM and hate speech? Because it makes sense to weigh individual freedoms against the cost to society. (and keep in mind that Apple is a publicly traded company) The cost of walled gardens are that they harm consumers. Consumers need to spend more money to overcome artificial barriers designed only to increase the amount of money they spend without offering any value. Interoperability for commodity tech like this is an obvious win for the economy. > The only reasoning behind the whole iMessage thing seems to stem from a specific age band of Americans that value others based on the background color of their messages. This is a human problem, not a technology problem. If that's really what you think this is about, then you haven't been paying attention to any of the discussions on the topic. Or you're doing the thing internet people do where you're being disingenuous just to win an argument.