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>somehow people aren’t bothered at all that “messaging” programs don’t interoperate. I used Trillian for almost a decade; it was the second best solution to ac

by yterdy 3y ago

>somehow people aren’t bothered at all that “messaging” programs don’t interoperate. I used Trillian for almost a decade; it was the second best solution to actually being able to message Yahoo and MSN users from my AIM handle. I think people have been bothered, but when an entire platform disappears, there's not much anyone can do. The coding wizards who are capable of doing something (in concert with some marketing wizards, maybe) don't seem interested.

jrochkind1 3y ago
The "coding wizards" are largely interested in doing what someone will pay them to do, of course. With some exceptions, but of course the bulk of the work that has been put into messaging apps and protocols over the past two decades, whether open or proprietary, has been by engineers and "coding wizards" getting paid by a for-profit company to do it. So it's really about what those who have money they spend paying for development are interested in, I think, not the interests of "coding wizards", who might love making something different if they could be paid similarly (or at all?) to do it.
- yterdy 3y ago
  There are many ways to get paid, and many basic technologies that people work on because they're intrinsically interested in it or in what it could do for their community or the public. I don't think it's controversial to say that there's generally a focus/priority issue in the tech industry. The world's most profitable progress-themed ad distributor.
  - jrochkind1 3y ago
    I think the amount of developer-hours spent working on things -- without betting paid -- because they are intrinsically interested or think it's socially useful, is dwarfed, by orders of magnitude, by developer-hours spent getting paid. The number of developer-hours getting paid to work on proprietary messaging systems is pretty huge. And this is hardly irrelevant to understanding why we have proprietary messaging systems. Whether you personally are a developer or not -- if you have spent more hours building something you haven't gotten paid for than you have at your paid job, you are an unusual person. (Such unusual people do exist! they often, but not always, have atypical lives in some way that allows this) I mean, you think "the world's most profitable progress-themed ad distributor" comes about becuase "coding wizards" are just intrinsically intersted in this, rather than because it's what makes people lots of money? It's just a lucky coincidence lots of people made money, that focus is really because "coding wizards" by and large just love distributing ads, it's a personal interest? This is all guided by the personal interests of "coding wizards" rather than by who pays for software development for what?
    - yterdy 3y ago
      >I mean, you think "the world's most profitable progress-themed ad distributor" comes about becuase "coding wizards" are just intrinsically intersted in this, rather than because it's what makes people lots of money? Not at all. The "most profitable" part was an acknowledgement that money is at the center of such decision-making. But that paradigm exists alongside the one where FOSS and indie libraries and software are at the base of a number of important technologies. I'm just having trouble understanding why messaging isn't one of them.

by yterdy 3y ago

jrochkind1 3y ago

The "coding wizards" are largely interested in doing what someone will pay them to do, of course. With some exceptions, but of course the bulk of the work that has been put into messaging apps and protocols over the past two decades, whether open or proprietary, has been by engineers and "coding wizards" getting paid by a for-profit company to do it. So it's really about what those who have money they spend paying for development are interested in, I think, not the interests of "coding wizards", who might love making something different if they could be paid similarly (or at all?) to do it.

yterdy 3y ago
There are many ways to get paid, and many basic technologies that people work on because they're intrinsically interested in it or in what it could do for their community or the public. I don't think it's controversial to say that there's generally a focus/priority issue in the tech industry. The world's most profitable progress-themed ad distributor.
- jrochkind1 3y ago
  I think the amount of developer-hours spent working on things -- without betting paid -- because they are intrinsically interested or think it's socially useful, is dwarfed, by orders of magnitude, by developer-hours spent getting paid. The number of developer-hours getting paid to work on proprietary messaging systems is pretty huge. And this is hardly irrelevant to understanding why we have proprietary messaging systems. Whether you personally are a developer or not -- if you have spent more hours building something you haven't gotten paid for than you have at your paid job, you are an unusual person. (Such unusual people do exist! they often, but not always, have atypical lives in some way that allows this) I mean, you think "the world's most profitable progress-themed ad distributor" comes about becuase "coding wizards" are just intrinsically intersted in this, rather than because it's what makes people lots of money? It's just a lucky coincidence lots of people made money, that focus is really because "coding wizards" by and large just love distributing ads, it's a personal interest? This is all guided by the personal interests of "coding wizards" rather than by who pays for software development for what?
  - yterdy 3y ago
    >I mean, you think "the world's most profitable progress-themed ad distributor" comes about becuase "coding wizards" are just intrinsically intersted in this, rather than because it's what makes people lots of money? Not at all. The "most profitable" part was an acknowledgement that money is at the center of such decision-making. But that paradigm exists alongside the one where FOSS and indie libraries and software are at the base of a number of important technologies. I'm just having trouble understanding why messaging isn't one of them.