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US Gen Z and the iMessage Lock-In

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Re: US Gen Z and the iMessage Lock-In

#181

Post by viraptor »

ryandrake wrote: post #169

If friends decide to exclude you from their group because of what messaging technology you use, then I have some bad news for you: They're not really your friends. That kind of behavior is not compatible with what most of us would expect of a healthy friendship.

That would be my response as an adult. I'm not sure if this is as easy to see by kids. But for teenagers, I think it's an interesting conversation: "Your friend will exclude you if you don't spend hundreds of dollars on a tech gadget, even if a no-cost solution exists on their side. What do you think about this?"

If it's an activity group they really want to belong to, that's ok. If it's between friends who want to stay close... something's not right.

Re: US Gen Z and the iMessage Lock-In

#182

Post by damnyou »

axaxs wrote: post #138
damnyou wrote: post #101

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, as I said, the kids are just picking up patterns from adults. Ultimately this is a larger societal problem of exclusion. America has taken it to its extreme, with racial segregation, redlining and the prison industrial complex. This iMessage nonsense is just a small and relatively benign symptom of the fundamental problem with America. As a left-libertarian who believes in inclusion, I'm sure not going to encour…

You can't seriously be comparing iMessage usage to racial segregation. I refuse to believe this is a real comment.

I very specifically said that iMessage is a small example of a general pattern of exclusion. (But yeah, people of color are less likely to use iPhones. I thought this was well known.)

Re: US Gen Z and the iMessage Lock-In

#183

Post by damnyou »

saagarjha wrote: post #133
damnyou wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Of course you buy apps from Apple. That's why Apple, worth gobloads of money, can impose a 30% tax on independent app developers' labor. You can't even tell users how to subscribe without giving Apple a cut if you're on iOS. To any normal person that's an egregious abuse of power. Somehow people on HN just suck it up. Does WhatsApp force a particular voice assistant or app store on you? No? Apple's lock in is abusive…

> Does WhatsApp force a particular voice assistant or app store on you? No? WhatsApp is not a mobile OS.

Neither is iMessage, but only one of them forces you to use a particular mobile OS, conveniently made by the same trillion dollar megacorp, to use it.

Re: US Gen Z and the iMessage Lock-In

#184

Post by damnyou »

irq wrote: post #123
damnyou wrote: post #117

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Every single Apple device has a hidden agenda — to make Apple even more powerful than it is today, even more of a bully. All concentrations of power are bad. As a society we must always seek to reduce power imbalances, not perpetuate them

All for profit companies have that agenda- it is very much NOT hidden.

Apple pushes it further than anyone else. You can install other app stores like F-Droid on Android.

Re: US Gen Z and the iMessage Lock-In

#185

Post by soonoutoftime »

e40 wrote: post #163
mattmcknight wrote: post #125

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Google's abandonment of Hangouts was phenomenally stupid, and it should itself really have just been an evolution of Google Talk. It's a symptom of something very wrong in the incentive structure and product portfolio management there where you have to roll out a new application to add a feature, and the various applications cannot interoperate. Perhaps the underlying issue is that none of these made money directly.…

It's even more stupid when you find out that Hangouts is still alive and well for Google Fi customers. I'm one and I haven't stopped using Hangouts, even though most of the people I know on GFi use something else because they read it was being turned off. The fact is, Google doesn't yet have a replacement for something they stopped developing years ago. It is completely insane.

I still use hangouts with my friends (because of its OTR feature) and none of us are Google Fi customers.

Re: US Gen Z and the iMessage Lock-In

#186

Post by throw7 »

Kadin wrote: post #64

I switched to iOS (via a used iPhone on a BYOD plan) primarily for iMessage. I was tired of being the odd man out, missing out on things that were being planned via group messages, etc. Nobody was going to switch to an entirely different mode of communication just for my sake, so the existence of theoretical alternatives doesn't really matter. (And I do try to use Facebook Messenger for group chats, so as not to lock…

> RCS is garbage.

The _only_ universal _carrier_ solution for messaging is SMS. What does iMessage do to get to all cell phone users? That is the only thing that matters here. full stop.

I have many relatives that wanted me to "install" Whatsapp. I refuse. So whatsapp is the failure here? Or is it me because I refuse?

What is garbage is OOT.

Google is not the failure. Hell, the problem is right in the title of the OP: "Lock-in". At least google is trying to get SMS into the 90's.

You know what, I'm drunk and tired here... it's really just ignorant users that don't understand why everyone just doesn't use iMessage (apple proprietary) vs not understanding how open standard protocols and file formats work (email). We'll each be fighting this war till the day we die. It's in our nature.

Re: US Gen Z and the iMessage Lock-In

#187

Post by Scoundreller »

Kadin wrote: post #64

I switched to iOS (via a used iPhone on a BYOD plan) primarily for iMessage. I was tired of being the odd man out, missing out on things that were being planned via group messages, etc. Nobody was going to switch to an entirely different mode of communication just for my sake, so the existence of theoretical alternatives doesn't really matter. (And I do try to use Facebook Messenger for group chats, so as not to lock…

> Google could have owned this space if they hadn't taken their eye off the ball and fucked up Hangouts.

And going even further back in time, RIM/Blackberry could have owned the space. Instead they focussed on hardware instead of the real driver of their sales: BBM.

Their market cap these days is $4b, while Whatsapp sold for $18b.

It didn't help that Blackberry's comms encryption for consumer devices was complete and utter garbage.

Re: US Gen Z and the iMessage Lock-In

#188

Post by incompatible »

asclepi wrote: post #104
foobarchu wrote: post #99

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Reverting to SMS is the problem, though. It gives participants the illusion that the conversation can be extended to anyone, but once they find out that the platform loses features and degrades with the addition of an android participant, that person is excluded so that the rest can keep using the full-featured platform. The suggestion of WhatsApp is so that everyone can use their own phone and have full features. If…

> If someone wants to join the chat, then its on them to get on board with what everyone else wants. However, when a community of people chooses Whatsapp as the exclusive form of communication, everyone in that community is forced to get that app or be left out of the loop. Those who object to installing Whatsapp because of the serious privacy controversies surrounding its parent are left with no choice. This is wher…

I'd put the fault with the smartphone + software industry for failing to come up with a shared open/secure messaging protocol, with fault also to governments for not insisting on such a protocol, and fault also on people who willingly use proprietary systems including WhatsApp and Messages with rejection of "green bubbles".

The current situation of competing proprietary non-interoperable systems seems ridiculous.

Re: US Gen Z and the iMessage Lock-In

#189

Post by Scoundreller »

throw7 wrote: post #186
Kadin wrote: post #64

I switched to iOS (via a used iPhone on a BYOD plan) primarily for iMessage. I was tired of being the odd man out, missing out on things that were being planned via group messages, etc. Nobody was going to switch to an entirely different mode of communication just for my sake, so the existence of theoretical alternatives doesn't really matter. (And I do try to use Facebook Messenger for group chats, so as not to lock…

> RCS is garbage. The _only_ universal _carrier_ solution for messaging is SMS. What does iMessage do to get to all cell phone users? That is the only thing that matters here. full stop. I have many relatives that wanted me to "install" Whatsapp. I refuse. So whatsapp is the failure here? Or is it me because I refuse? What is garbage is OOT. Google is not the failure. Hell, the problem is right in the title of the OP…

I trust Apple for security a lot more than I trust my local telecom.

Re: US Gen Z and the iMessage Lock-In

#190

Post by erichocean »

throw7 wrote: post #186
Kadin wrote: post #64

I switched to iOS (via a used iPhone on a BYOD plan) primarily for iMessage. I was tired of being the odd man out, missing out on things that were being planned via group messages, etc. Nobody was going to switch to an entirely different mode of communication just for my sake, so the existence of theoretical alternatives doesn't really matter. (And I do try to use Facebook Messenger for group chats, so as not to lock…

> RCS is garbage. The _only_ universal _carrier_ solution for messaging is SMS. What does iMessage do to get to all cell phone users? That is the only thing that matters here. full stop. I have many relatives that wanted me to "install" Whatsapp. I refuse. So whatsapp is the failure here? Or is it me because I refuse? What is garbage is OOT. Google is not the failure. Hell, the problem is right in the title of the OP…

> What does iMessage do to get to all cell phone users?

It falls back to using SMS if you don't have iMessage.

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