This has been going on for decades with MS Office. I recently proposed to an elderly acquaintance that they get a Chromebook because a full Windows installation was causing them so much trouble, but they couldn't because their peers edited one specific document using MS Word and for some reason it caused trouble when people edited it online. And that's just at the individual level, MS Office lock-in is a fact for so many organizations. People who really care about consumer choice, competition, and the free/open option should be vigorously working against these issues.
US Gen Z and the iMessage Lock-In
11–20 of 251 posts
Re: US Gen Z and the iMessage Lock-In
#12honestly havent been in an imessage group chat since groupme came out
They never had a monetization plan and don't charge for use and their last re-design was in 2012? How do you think they make money? Either they don't and they are going to disappear soon or they do and they are just another data pimp.
They got bought by Skype awhile back which is being shelved in favor of Teams. I bet MSFT shuts it down once it remembers it still exists.
Re: US Gen Z and the iMessage Lock-In
#13Is WhatsApp not used in the US? Honest question. I'm in EU, I moved to an iPhone a few years ago and I've yet to receive an actual iMessage, but my friends, local or international, all use WhatsApp. I just use regular SMS for more "formal" messaging, such as with my boss or landlord, or to receive OTP codes.
I see WhatsApp used in the US among folks with relatively large networks of international acquaintances. For those with more domestic social networks, pplain SMS, iMessage, GroupMe, and Facebook Messenger seem to be more common among the general population. Signal, Telegram, Discord, and Slack are pretty prevalent with techies.
Re: US Gen Z and the iMessage Lock-In
#14It is interesting that the comments on the Twitter thread are "Just use WhatsApp". Which is basically iMessage but from Facebook. Comparing two, the vendor lock-in from Apple seems much preferable to the one with Facebook in light of the data scandals Facebook has and their ongoing effort to backdoor WhatsApp and integrate it with FB messenger etc. Also a group message is only as secure as its most weakly encrypted m…
I don't know if this is too self promoting, but I'm part of the YC SUS 2019 program and I'm building a product that addresses the issue of messaging lock in, as well as data privacy.
I'm building Thread - an ad-free, private social network for groups. It's an alternative to Facebook (Messenger and WhatsApp), iMessage and GroupMe. It's the best way to connect with, share content to, and interact with the people in your life.
It's a limited release right now (still in alpha), but please sign up and check it out at https://thread-app.com/register. EDIT: it only is available on desktop web at the moment to US based users. Anything else will most likely give you an error.
E2E encryption is something we are considering building. Right now, the promise is no-ads, no front-end tracking, and no selling data to third parties.
Happy to chat more about it and answer any questions (maybe this isn't an appropriate place for that discussion).
Re: US Gen Z and the iMessage Lock-In
#15It is interesting that the comments on the Twitter thread are "Just use WhatsApp". Which is basically iMessage but from Facebook. Comparing two, the vendor lock-in from Apple seems much preferable to the one with Facebook in light of the data scandals Facebook has and their ongoing effort to backdoor WhatsApp and integrate it with FB messenger etc. Also a group message is only as secure as its most weakly encrypted m…
I don't know if this is too self promoting, but I'm part of the YC SUS 2019 program and I'm building a product that addresses the issue of messaging lock in, as well as data privacy. I'm building Thread - an ad-free, private social network for groups. It's an alternative to Facebook (Messenger and WhatsApp), iMessage and GroupMe. It's the best way to connect with, share content to, and interact with the people in you…
FYI, the website is broken in Safari. Syntax error in the JS, totally blank page.
Re: US Gen Z and the iMessage Lock-In
#16Well, it is a bit unfortunate they didn’t standardize on something cross-platform like Whatsapp. But if they had, would the situation really be that different?
Re: US Gen Z and the iMessage Lock-In
#17It is interesting that the comments on the Twitter thread are "Just use WhatsApp". Which is basically iMessage but from Facebook. Comparing two, the vendor lock-in from Apple seems much preferable to the one with Facebook in light of the data scandals Facebook has and their ongoing effort to backdoor WhatsApp and integrate it with FB messenger etc. Also a group message is only as secure as its most weakly encrypted m…
WhatsApp doesn't make you buy $750 dongles and force itself onto the rest of your life in order to communicate with your friends.
Re: US Gen Z and the iMessage Lock-In
#18It is interesting that the comments on the Twitter thread are "Just use WhatsApp". Which is basically iMessage but from Facebook. Comparing two, the vendor lock-in from Apple seems much preferable to the one with Facebook in light of the data scandals Facebook has and their ongoing effort to backdoor WhatsApp and integrate it with FB messenger etc. Also a group message is only as secure as its most weakly encrypted m…
I don't know if this is too self promoting, but I'm part of the YC SUS 2019 program and I'm building a product that addresses the issue of messaging lock in, as well as data privacy. I'm building Thread - an ad-free, private social network for groups. It's an alternative to Facebook (Messenger and WhatsApp), iMessage and GroupMe. It's the best way to connect with, share content to, and interact with the people in you…
Site is currently broken.
Are you using ActivityPub &c?
Even if it is somewhat bulky, these linked data standards are the way to ensure you are creating the most open, reusable data possible on the largest stage.
Re: US Gen Z and the iMessage Lock-In
#19It is interesting that the comments on the Twitter thread are "Just use WhatsApp". Which is basically iMessage but from Facebook. Comparing two, the vendor lock-in from Apple seems much preferable to the one with Facebook in light of the data scandals Facebook has and their ongoing effort to backdoor WhatsApp and integrate it with FB messenger etc. Also a group message is only as secure as its most weakly encrypted m…
In Europe WhatsApp was huge well before Facebook purchased them. From my own experience, the product has barely changed since then, so I don't really feel like it's a Facebook product (yet), and so while I dislike using Facebook services WhatApp is basically fine for now. Almost everyone I know uses WhatsApp. Funnily enough my family are the only ones who don't, and use iMessage instead. This isn't an active choice t…
It is 100% a Facebook product. It is FB. I 100% guarantee all data mined from your WhatsApp account is linked either to your FB account or your shadow FB account if you never signed up.
Sure maybe the "experience" hasn't changed from a UI standpoint but FB is weakening WhatsApp's end to end encryption and mining your conversations so under the hood the experience is radically different.
There is a reason the founders of WhatsApp quit FB post acquisition (literally leaving hundreds of millions of dollars behind) in disgust over the privacy abuses Facebook was proposing. https://www.cnbc.com/2018/09/26/whatsapp-co-founder-explains...
Re: US Gen Z and the iMessage Lock-In
#20It's misleading to just say "because of the green text" it's so much more than that. If you have an active iMessage chat and users are using iMessage features, it's a weird experience for the non-iMessage folks. It seemed like a real victory to have emojis in the UTF format, but of course now Apple turns on the big FU and finds other ways to chide non-iMessage users. Don't blame the kids.
The kids could just be inclusive and switch to Telegram or WhatsApp or even Messenger. But the kids want to discriminate — humans, particularly Americans, thrive on excluding other people. the kids are just imitating the patterns they pick up from adults.