Mobile really messed us up. We had IRC but it just didn't work well in a mobile environment, and we let Google rug pull us with XMPP Google Talk. App Store mono

Mobile really messed us up. We had IRC but it just didn't work well in a mobile environment, and we let Google rug pull us with XMPP Google Talk. App Store monopolies seem like they're coming down, but stuff like having to use Google's push notification service and whatever is really limiting. We do have common protocols: email, IRC, XMPP, Matrix, Signal, MLS, all of which are various good degrees of well-specified and open source. We have the tools, we just essentially need to be OK with saying "WhatsApp is just for interacting with my kid's teacher; my friends and family use Signal". I think nerds, geeks, punks, and artists forget we're the interesting ones. It's fine to use Threads for sports/normie stuff and Mastodon/Signal for our stuff. The separation is a gift.