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The web browser analogy is a poor one. There are countless standards in place for the reproduction of content on the web, and these days most popular browsers a

by UVB-76 13y ago

The web browser analogy is a poor one. There are countless standards in place for the reproduction of content on the web, and these days most popular browsers are quite good at supporting those standards. When it comes to a commercial product like Google Hangouts, allowing users to use unsupported third-party clients is a big risk. People will conflate the client and the service; problems with the client will damage the reputation of the service, and so on.

jmillikin 13y ago
> There are countless standards in place for the > reproduction of content on the web, and these days most > popular browsers are quite good at supporting those > standards. In many areas of the world, IE is the most popular browser by a huge margin. Even in America, IE still has a 40% market share[1]. That's a huge number of users which will not be able to use modern web standards. [1] http://clicky.com/marketshare/us/web-browsers/ http://clicky.com/marketshare/us/web-browsers/ > When it comes to a commercial product like Google > Hangouts, allowing users to use unsupported third-party > clients is a big risk. People will conflate the client > and the service; problems with the client will damage > the reputation of the service, and so on. This position flies in the face of both experience and common sense. Any serious commercial site is will support ancient, crufty, poorly-functioning browsers. Hell, if I want to order something from Amazon in w3m or lynx, I bet it would work. A customer with a terrible browser is still a customer, and maybe they are too busy managing their investment portfolio to be bothered upgrading their old Windows 95 desktop. And nobody is going to sign up for Hangouts, miss the official client, and accidentally download Pidgin instead. If a person signs in with a third-party client, they know exactly what they're doing. They're not going to go post on the support forums saying "help, I can't find the videoconference button". Requiring all users to install some proprietary application out of a desire for a "coherent experience" or to "preserve the service's reputation" is user-hostile behavior.
shmerl 13y ago
E-mail analogy is better. Imagine a service, which only allows using one e-mail client and doesn't allow sending e-mails to anyone outside itself. I wouldn't want to use such service.
- deleted 13y ago
  [deleted]
- dragonwriter 13y ago
  Interestingly, such a system (e-mail like system which only supports first-party clients and can only send to and receive from other users of the same service) is a common feature of web discussion fora and social networking sites. You might not want it, but such services haven't exactly failed in the market.
  - shmerl 13y ago
    Your example isn't good, since forum messaging has limited scope, while e-mail is generic. Instant messaging can have limited scope in other scenarios (let's say you chatting with some support representative for some service). It can be generic as well. Here we are discussing generic instant messaging. Therefore it's proper to compare it to generic e-mail. When it's artificially limited by the service walls, it's unacceptable. such services haven't exactly failed in the market. Indeed, services like AIM, Skype, Whatsapp and etc. have many users, and are presented as generic instant messaging services, yet they don't allow their users to communicate with others. It's somewhat surprising to me, that people are ready to accept that fact. For some reason they'd see cutting their e-mail off from other servers as unacceptable, but the fact that they are confined within the network of proprietary IM clients doesn't bother them, even though because of that they need to use many clients or protocols to communicate with different networks having an account on each.
    - dragonwriter 13y ago
      > Froum messaging has limited scope. E-mail is generic. Making a system closed by boundaries automatically gives it limited scope, but forum messaging isn't any more limited in scope than results from those closed boundaries. Ditto with social network-based closed mail-like messaging.
      - shmerl 13y ago
        See above. Social network messaging is presented as generic. So I won't compare it with forum messaging.

by UVB-76 13y ago

jmillikin 13y ago

> There are countless standards in place for the > reproduction of content on the web, and these days most > popular browsers are quite good at supporting those > standards. In many areas of the world, IE is the most popular browser by a huge margin. Even in America, IE still has a 40% market share[1]. That's a huge number of users which will not be able to use modern web standards. [1] http://clicky.com/marketshare/us/web-browsers/ http://clicky.com/marketshare/us/web-browsers/ > When it comes to a commercial product like Google > Hangouts, allowing users to use unsupported third-party > clients is a big risk. People will conflate the client > and the service; problems with the client will damage > the reputation of the service, and so on. This position flies in the face of both experience and common sense. Any serious commercial site is will support ancient, crufty, poorly-functioning browsers. Hell, if I want to order something from Amazon in w3m or lynx, I bet it would work. A customer with a terrible browser is still a customer, and maybe they are too busy managing their investment portfolio to be bothered upgrading their old Windows 95 desktop. And nobody is going to sign up for Hangouts, miss the official client, and accidentally download Pidgin instead. If a person signs in with a third-party client, they know exactly what they're doing. They're not going to go post on the support forums saying "help, I can't find the videoconference button". Requiring all users to install some proprietary application out of a desire for a "coherent experience" or to "preserve the service's reputation" is user-hostile behavior.

shmerl 13y ago

E-mail analogy is better. Imagine a service, which only allows using one e-mail client and doesn't allow sending e-mails to anyone outside itself. I wouldn't want to use such service.

deleted 13y ago
[deleted]
dragonwriter 13y ago
Interestingly, such a system (e-mail like system which only supports first-party clients and can only send to and receive from other users of the same service) is a common feature of web discussion fora and social networking sites. You might not want it, but such services haven't exactly failed in the market.
- shmerl 13y ago
  Your example isn't good, since forum messaging has limited scope, while e-mail is generic. Instant messaging can have limited scope in other scenarios (let's say you chatting with some support representative for some service). It can be generic as well. Here we are discussing generic instant messaging. Therefore it's proper to compare it to generic e-mail. When it's artificially limited by the service walls, it's unacceptable. such services haven't exactly failed in the market. Indeed, services like AIM, Skype, Whatsapp and etc. have many users, and are presented as generic instant messaging services, yet they don't allow their users to communicate with others. It's somewhat surprising to me, that people are ready to accept that fact. For some reason they'd see cutting their e-mail off from other servers as unacceptable, but the fact that they are confined within the network of proprietary IM clients doesn't bother them, even though because of that they need to use many clients or protocols to communicate with different networks having an account on each.
  - dragonwriter 13y ago
    > Froum messaging has limited scope. E-mail is generic. Making a system closed by boundaries automatically gives it limited scope, but forum messaging isn't any more limited in scope than results from those closed boundaries. Ditto with social network-based closed mail-like messaging.
    - shmerl 13y ago
      See above. Social network messaging is presented as generic. So I won't compare it with forum messaging.