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Yea, I should have been more emphatic that I was specifically thinking about apps. Although I didn't mean the question to be explicitly about undue influence ov
by rfarley04 2y ago
Yea, I should have been more emphatic that I was specifically thinking about apps. Although I didn't mean the question to be explicitly about undue influence over a population, it is what I was wondering, e.g. how many (centralized) privately owned businesses would it take to get a message in front of an entire country. I was worried it would sound more conspiratorial than I wanted it to
- solardev 2y agoWhat do you mean "apps"? Isn't the messaging app still an... app? Do you mean like proprietary networks/protocols that only one vendor can access? Even by that standard, you can reach half the country through iMessage and the other half through RCS (which has some limited operability on iOS now). And both still fall back to SMS. The "dominant messenger app" thing just never really took off here in the US the way it did in Europe and Asia. Facebook Messenger was popular for a while, but never the majority. Same with AIM before it, though that was before the smartphone era. If you really want to reach 90% of the country, though, it's not really about messaging apps... just do something noteworthy and word will get around organically, with people sharing across channels for you.
- rfarley04 2y agoI mean privately owned, centralized internet based apps like WhatsApp, Facebook (the social media and the messenger), Twitter, etc.
- solardev 2y agoUnder that criteria, iMessage still counts (when it's not falling back to SMS). Messenger might still be used, but Facebook is generally falling out of favor with the younger generations... think they use Instagram and Discord more. WhatsApp is generally not used here. Twitter has a pretty limited audience and is mostly used for online comms, I think, not DMs to people you know IRL.