this post was submitted on 11 Dec 2023
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We use messenger, which I also don't like. Its ridiculous. If these fucken tech giants aren't going to right interoperability standards then someone needs to force them to. We made all this shit to make life better and somehow have forgotten that was the fucken goal.
For better or worse you happen to be using the one messaging app that is broadly agreed to be worse than iMessage.
Signal and Telegram are far superior, even putting aside the most glaring flaws of the other two.
Signal/Telegram are not very common where I’m at. I have Signal, nobody in my contacts does.
I've successfully converted a spouse, which I don't think is out of the question w.r.t who I replied to.
I've also converted my main friend group, but appreciate that's insurmountable for a lot of people - genuinely, people hate change after all. I'm lucky to have a lot of friends who work in tech and are receptive to trying new things.
Its convenience. Why have both of us download a new app strictly for pictures when she is already on Facebook, and I have a dusty one with no posts for a decade. Plus getting someone in the US to download a 3rd party messaging app is like asking them to respond to the Nigerian Prince for his offers.
Fair enough. It's kind of an oxymoron to worry about the trust of a given 3rd party messaging app while using products from a known, wide scale, repeated privacy intruder like Meta, but you have what you need in terms of convenience so I won't make a further case for an alternative.
Believe me, I know. I wouldn't be using it if the people I need it for would switch. But people don't give a shit here. I gave up trying to move apps. The rest of my shit is arch linux and de googled. This is the last hold out.
I'd say Telegram isn't superior. It's default encryption is nowhere near iMessage.
And if you step up the encryption, you lose group chats.
For it's flaws, iMessage is a very good solution, one that Signal was emulating for a while.
I'm not criticising the UX of iMessage for Apple to Apple comms. It's solid, and was leader-in-class for a very long time.
Why messenger of all things. That's the worst one.
Why should they be forced to interop? That'll just reduce it to the lowest commend denominator. What impetus would any of them have for investing in making a better system if everyone can use their work?
We have choices. We don't have to use iMessage, or Beeper. We can use other messengers.
Forcing interop means all messengers will function the same... Again at the LCD level.
Plus different messengers have different capabilities, different use-cases.
Frankly I don't even want to use SMS at all, and haven't wanted to for 10 years. I want a messenger that's independent of my mobile device that I can simply sign into just about anywhere. Kind of like instant messengers were in the late 90's (which often used things like XMPP).
Ten+ years ago I was running instant messengers on Android. Pidgin, Trillian, etc, logging in to multiple messengers. That should've been the path forward, but people couldn't be bothered because SMS was free, native, and "good enough" (in their minds).
And yet back then any conversations I had on any device showed up on all devices. With no dependence on my SIM or phone hardware ID.
>"Interop bad"
>using lemmy
interoperability is the capability of a product or system to interact and function with others. Why would that force them to all function the same? Why would that be bad for us as consumers? Why does it matter how many choices we have if those choices restrict us to using a specific one? Interoperability solves all of these and causes none of the problems you are stating. Of course they have no incentive for doing this as it doesn't benefit a corporation, they're only incentivized to entrap people in their ecosystems cause it makes them the most money. Different messaging standards is one of the ways they keep us locked in. This is a choice, too, one made by the tech giants for you with no choice in the matter. You can't send a nice quality picture from iMessage to Google Messages, get fukt.
How else do you make them interop, other than by finding a common mapping?
Why would any company map their extended or unique elements, which they developed, to meet government regs?
They won't, they'll drop to the least effort required to get the regulators off their backs.
I have a choice. Apple users have a choice. There are plenty of other messenging systems out there.
MS Teams
Skype
Element
SimpleX
Signal
Telegram
Wire
Wiremin
Litewire
Discord
Conversations
Snikket
Briar
Zello
TwinMe
Tox
Keybase
Threema
Whatsapp
Jami
XMPP (which some listed use)
Just go to Wikipedia for a long list of different messengers and their capabilities.
Choice is nice, but my problem is the choices can't communicate with each other correctly. Thats an issue. Its an issue when our communication devices are not effective at communicating what we want to. We are already seeing the bare ass minimum right now, which is just SMS. They're doing that now, the bare minimum. If Apple was forced to fix their shitty conversion instead of it just picking the worst resolution possible, they would do it. It doesn't matter what app I use because most people in the US use iMessage, and thats where I do most of my communicating.