4 ms·

I never fully understood why everybody is using XMPP in walled gardens (e.g. Whatsapp, Facebook, Messages...). Do you think they get anything from that? Is any

• speeder 14y ago
  Seemly Whatsapp is, and what they are doing is genius, I would pay even more for the service than what they are charging (99 cents year). At first I did not understood, what it had in special, until I figured that it was the fact that it used your phone contact list, thus taking out the boring task of managing that, and making adding people to your list easy as finding someone phone number. Yet, I would not use it as my primary messenger (neither Facebook), because of how they are tied to something in particular (phones, Facebook) and thus allow less flexibility in where or how I use them.
  • fbeeper 14y ago
    Wow, I didn't know they charged 99 cents/year to Android users now. It wasn't like that in the past! iPhone monetization continues as a single payment. Do you think that this is enough to maintain the company? Many other companies should be perfectly capable to reproduce the contacts-promiscuity that Whatsapp is using. And they could even mix it with compatibility to other XMPP platforms...
  • shmerl 14y ago
    Why would you pay for such service if one can get a normal secure and federated XMPP service for free? Whatsapp offers no advantages of XMPP (no interoperability and no federation) and only adds problems (flawed security). Paying money for such kind of disservice is simply strange.
    • amitdugar 14y ago
      Adoption. That is one of the main reasons why most people won't mind paying for whatsapp ; almost everyone on their contacts list already uses the app and frankly most people don't know or care much about whatsapp's security measures.
      • shmerl 14y ago
        None of my contacts use it, so I can't say anything about adoption. But if someone needs to use an IM network - there are good XMPP services. Simply invite your friends to any federated XMPP server and you have an interoperable way to communicate with them.
        • robbiemitchell 14y ago
          "Simply invite your friends to any federated XMPP server..." I can't even get my friends to click invitation links to pre-baked apps.
          • shmerl 14y ago
            Explain to them what's bad about walled IM networks (it's like not being able to send e-mails between AOL and Compuserve back in the day) and explain what is the point in the federated XMPP networks. Then explain why Whatsapp security is totally broken. If people won't care after that - just leave them alone. :) Most people understand, but claim they are too tied in the existing walled networks. Some don't mind registering on some XMPP server in addition, so you can get a range of results.
    • baddox 14y ago
      The obvious advantage is that other people use Whatsapp, which is important for a messaging app.
  • mahyarm 14y ago
    Tango has identical address book auto friend finding and also does video calls on top of IM. And it's free. There are several apps that do that and are free actually. Disclaimer: I work at Tango.
• shmerl 14y ago
  Because they don't care? Whatsapp is a monstrosity.