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WhatsApp and most alternatives share the same problem

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Re: WhatsApp and most alternatives share the same problem

#121

Post by cosmodisk »

GekkePrutser wrote: post #104
cosmodisk wrote: post #86

Earlier quoted context omitted.

He's got a point tbh. We are having family members who are just about manage to operate WhatsApp. To talk about them booking flights or shopping on Amazon is the equivalent of flying to Mars tomorrow. I reckon there are tens if not hundreds of millions of users who just about manage to answer a call or reply to a message. An average HN reader is probably 0.01% in terms of understanding how to use tech, but there's 99…

But how do they pay their taxes? Sign up for electricity or a mobile phone? Literally everything now requires an electronic account somewhere. I now have 200+ accounts in my Password manager. Sure, I know I'm part of the 0.01%. But I can't imagine that there's anyone who does own a smartphone but still has less than 10 online accounts somewhere :) You just need them for too many basic necessities of life these days.…

You see, that's the problem that you find it difficult to even comprehend that some people are like this. I often find myself thinking I'm clueless about computers just to slap myself in the face seconds later, as a reminder that the absolute majority on this planet is nowhere near my level. Even in professional environments, people struggle to do so many things tech related but unless you are one of them, you just assume everyone knows it. In some fields it's the opposite, where people tend to be arrogant because they think they know stuff everyone else has no clue about. Every time I meet a doctor and I throw in some phrases rarely used outside medical field, they immediately ask if I'm a doctor, because suddenly I stand somewhat higher in their eyes.

Re: WhatsApp and most alternatives share the same problem

#122

Post by capableweb »

Nowado wrote: post #89
capableweb wrote: post #71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Whatsapp got bought by Facebook which changed their strategy 100%. They used to ask users for a $1/year payment or something like that, but after being bought by Facebook, they now focus on just providing data to Facebook. I think one of the founders also have openly gone out and regretted the sale to Facebook - "At the end of the day, I sold my company. I sold my users’ privacy to a larger benefit. I made a choice a…

So the plan is to keep on creating new protocols so that there's frequent, although not constant, stream of services that are already user-friendly, but not optimized for milking data yet? This doesn't strike me as a 'solution'.

Not unless you misunderstand how protocols work.

Milking data, user friendliness and open protocols are orthogonal areas that gives different benefits. User friendliness makes it so people actually use the product, open protocols forces the service/application providers to care more about the user (otherwise they leave for something else, taking their data with them) and milking data can be done no matter how good/bad user experience is and if the protocol is closed/open.

Re: WhatsApp and most alternatives share the same problem

#123

Post by mercacona »

“Walled gardens” are worth for stuff like communications. No one likes to speak in X and being “hacked” by someone that knows how to trick the speech so people will understand or see a different message.

The downfall of email is a byproduct of “smart-ass” clients that add spy pixels, scheduled messages, automatic reminders, Rich HTML emails that looks horrible on mobile, etc.

An standard protocol, and a standard app, is good for the people who just wants to communicate something with someone; may be hackers doesn’t get it, but I’m happy some like moxie does.

Re: WhatsApp and most alternatives share the same problem

#124

Post by ppf »

Retr0spectrum wrote: post #114
ppf wrote: post #42

They don't mention the other issue - Whatsapp and similar are, if anything, the worst form of social media. You have shallow conversations that dribble your attention away throughout your entire day, yet you have not gained any meaningful interaction.

I don't know how to phrase this without it sounding unnecessarily mean, but maybe you're just talking to shallow people? Other than platforms with character count limits like Twitter, I don't see why the platform itself should have much affect on the depth or meaningfulness of conversations.

The textual content of a conversation is the tip of the iceberg in the information that is shared during a face-to-face conversation.

If you include "face to face" in your "platforms", then it absolutely blows anything else out of the water in terms of depth and meaningfulness of conversations (on average).

I left Whatsapp (and Signal) a few weeks ago, and feel like a better human.

Re: WhatsApp and most alternatives share the same problem

#125

Post by netfortius »

Isn't this a known trajectory for all such [solutions]: ease of use, multi-platform, originally advertised privacy and security concern, critical mass gain ==> sell / be acquired (latter requiring a little extra $$$ effort from the acquirer part) to FB/Google/Amazon/etc.?

Re: WhatsApp and most alternatives share the same problem

#126

Post by upofadown »

CJefferson wrote: post #11

I really sympathise with this point of view, but when it comes to messaging with family and friends, I just don't really care. Matrix seems to want to be an IRC replacement rather than a one-to-one / small-group chat app. That's fine, but often not what I want. Teaching my mother in law to use Signal: Install. Accept permissions. Choose a PIN. I can send you messages. You can see your friends who already use Signal.…

>Install. Accept permissions. Choose a PIN. I can send you messages. You can see your friends who already use Signal. Well done!

Sure but that does not in any way take away from the point that siloed messengers are a bad idea. If the XMPP/Matrix people wanted to they could set up a trusted third party server to link identities to phone numbers just like Signal does. They could even claim to use some sort of hardware enclave to do it. You could at that point create clients that were functionally identical to Signal but that worked on the respective federated networks. Heck you could probably do that with encrypted email and no one would much mind any added latency.

When people are talking about messaging systems that do not interoperate they are complaining about the underlying protocols. Client useability is a whole other discussion. I think there is a tendency to confuse the two in this sort of discussion.

Re: WhatsApp and most alternatives share the same problem

#127

Post by dosenbrot »

agumonkey wrote: post #85
CJefferson wrote: post #11

I really sympathise with this point of view, but when it comes to messaging with family and friends, I just don't really care. Matrix seems to want to be an IRC replacement rather than a one-to-one / small-group chat app. That's fine, but often not what I want. Teaching my mother in law to use Signal: Install. Accept permissions. Choose a PIN. I can send you messages. You can see your friends who already use Signal.…

if the matrix guy can read this, it's important, make things mean and lean.. not overly powerful to the point of alienating the mass market. Maybe have an expert mode for that.

This. Using the app should be dead simple - with a default server, a default username, maybe even a pre set password (bound to the phone number or whatever, I'm not a fan of this but they all do it this way) and a feature adding contacts via link, qrcode, or phone-number. And then there should be a button for expert-mode giving you the complicated setup you want - choosing your own server, name, password and whatever.

Re: WhatsApp and most alternatives share the same problem

#128

Post by cambalache »

m4lvin wrote: post #76
ezst wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Also, for what's worth, my grandma uses XMPP just fine...

+1 Also, "grandma" is an annoying cliche/placeholder. No law says that young males understand any kind of app or sign-up process immediately.

Put any barrier between young males and their porn and your pet theory will crash down

Re: WhatsApp and most alternatives share the same problem

#129

Post by mixedCase »

upofadown wrote: post #126
CJefferson wrote: post #11

I really sympathise with this point of view, but when it comes to messaging with family and friends, I just don't really care. Matrix seems to want to be an IRC replacement rather than a one-to-one / small-group chat app. That's fine, but often not what I want. Teaching my mother in law to use Signal: Install. Accept permissions. Choose a PIN. I can send you messages. You can see your friends who already use Signal.…

>Install. Accept permissions. Choose a PIN. I can send you messages. You can see your friends who already use Signal. Well done! Sure but that does not in any way take away from the point that siloed messengers are a bad idea. If the XMPP/Matrix people wanted to they could set up a trusted third party server to link identities to phone numbers just like Signal does. They could even claim to use some sort of hardware…

> Sure but that does not in any way take away from the point that siloed messengers are a bad idea.

Well, too bad! Usability trumps idealism when network effects are at play.

> If the XMPP/Matrix people wanted to they could set up a trusted third party server to link identities to phone numbers just like Signal does

Usability is so bad that you're defending Matrix and don't even know this is already available, just has terrible UX.

Chat protocols don't matter at all if the final product isn't something grandma can easily use. Element has many of the pieces in place, but it needs go further.

I say this as I use Matrix. I've set-up Matrix for my SO and family just to talk to me, you know, like a bastard. I want Matrix to succeed.

But it's not going to happen unless it can match tit-for-tat the usability of things like WhatsApp or Telegram, even if that means having defaults that geeks find "icky", like railroading the user into a single instance (and hiding non-matrix homeservers in a corner), defaulting to using the phone number as an account without passwords, and auto-joining to an identity server.

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