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> I thought XMPP was going to be our savior in that front, but Google saw to that Out of all the companies that had a large IM network, the _last_ one to stop

> I thought XMPP was going to be our savior in that front, but Google saw to that Out of all the companies that had a large IM network, the _last_ one to stop s2s federation was the one that "saw to" the failure of XMPP? Never mind the fact that no other company with market power in this space (Microsoft w Skype, Facebook w Chat) allowed federation, walling off 90% of XMPP users, and by the time that Google shut off s2s, it was used by barely anyone. It's ignorance like this that incentivizes the exact behavior you're complaining about. Companies like Apple and Facebook look at Google's attempts at compromising product quality for openness[1] (which, to be clear, is a trade-off that I personally think is worth the benefits to the ecosystem) and the huge backlash they get when they finally throw in the towel long after the battle is lost (s2s federation was more or less irrelevant by the time they removed it because the vast majority of chat usage was on walled gardens). It becomes clear that the only winning move when subject to the ignorant flailings of public opinion is to aggressively avoid lack of support for things like federation and interoperability from the start, in which case the only people who lose are the users.

function_seven 12y ago
You're absolutely right, no good deed goes unpunished. I think I was suffering from "well, I expect FB and Apple to behave that way, but Google? Now I'm mad!" Well, that's not logical thinking. Google did try—more than anyone else—to bring openness to IM. When they did eventually throw in the towel, they became the unjustified focal point of justified anger. Meanwhile, iMessage, BBM, AIM, ICQ, MSM, Yahoo, WhatsApp, etc. all continue running walled-gardem IM systems. The closest thing to an open IM system is SMS. Thanks for the correction.
- wutbrodo 12y ago
  In general, the sentiment is understandable and in some fora, the context is understood by everyone present. The problem in my experience is that many people hear the loud complaints (and the absence of any similar complaints for companies that are worse) and don't have the implied context. This naturally leads the tenor of the conversation to "the subject of the complaint must be worse than companies in similar situations". I've even seen this happen on fora like HN where you'd expect the context to be understood. It reminds me of a friend of mine who has decided to preemptively leave tech early in her career because of the reputation it has for sexism (despite not (yet?) experiencing any issues firsthand). The main industry she's considering switching to? _Finance_! As much as most people implicitly know that sexism in finance is WAY worse, it's rarely brought up because it's considered something of a lost cause (for now). And yet, in her ignorance[1], my friend's assumption is that the relative visibility of sexism discussion maps to the relative incidence and severity of sexism in these industries. [1] The term ignorance here is meant literally: not having experience in either field and being forced to go off of what she reads/hears about.

function_seven 12y ago

You're absolutely right, no good deed goes unpunished. I think I was suffering from "well, I expect FB and Apple to behave that way, but Google? Now I'm mad!" Well, that's not logical thinking. Google did try—more than anyone else—to bring openness to IM. When they did eventually throw in the towel, they became the unjustified focal point of justified anger. Meanwhile, iMessage, BBM, AIM, ICQ, MSM, Yahoo, WhatsApp, etc. all continue running walled-gardem IM systems. The closest thing to an open IM system is SMS. Thanks for the correction.

wutbrodo 12y ago
In general, the sentiment is understandable and in some fora, the context is understood by everyone present. The problem in my experience is that many people hear the loud complaints (and the absence of any similar complaints for companies that are worse) and don't have the implied context. This naturally leads the tenor of the conversation to "the subject of the complaint must be worse than companies in similar situations". I've even seen this happen on fora like HN where you'd expect the context to be understood. It reminds me of a friend of mine who has decided to preemptively leave tech early in her career because of the reputation it has for sexism (despite not (yet?) experiencing any issues firsthand). The main industry she's considering switching to? _Finance_! As much as most people implicitly know that sexism in finance is WAY worse, it's rarely brought up because it's considered something of a lost cause (for now). And yet, in her ignorance[1], my friend's assumption is that the relative visibility of sexism discussion maps to the relative incidence and severity of sexism in these industries. [1] The term ignorance here is meant literally: not having experience in either field and being forced to go off of what she reads/hears about.