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It's time to stop texting

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Re: It's time to stop texting

#31

Post by alexb_ »

nerdjon wrote: post #27
Rayhem wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah, this feels a lot like saying "My god, people, stop using telephones! Facetime has video! And the bitrate ! It's a million times higher! It's 2023, why would anyone use a POTS call?!" Sure, nicer technical specs are...nice, but they're a far, far second to solving a problem. In an sms world: Problem: I need to contact a new acquaintance. Solution: Exchange phone numbers because everyone has them. Text. Or call.…

> The impoverished I am a bit mad at myself for not even thinking about that. I know people who still use flip phones and this basically segments them out even further. I think we just need to look at AIM, MSN, whatever yahoo's was called. I think there is a good reason that those were very quickly replaced by just SMS. Even though I would argue that in many ways those were superior to SMS and had features that we re…

>I am a bit mad at myself for not even thinking about that. I know people who still use flip phones and this basically segments them out even further

Don't worry, you're in good company - increasingly a gigantic amount of systems just assume that you have a smart phone and are willing to use it to do everything. And that you are fine having everything tracked and logged because you did it digitally. The assumption of "everyone has phones" is absolutely absurd, and it's way too wide spread. The final evolution of this is "cashless" stores/restaurants, where you literally cannot exchange money for goods and services without having a bank account and a smart phone.

Re: It's time to stop texting

#34

Post by ryandrake »

adam_arthur wrote: post #11

People would stop texting if there were a common protocol for messaging not on SMS. I'm sure they exist, but until WhatsApp can communicate with WeChat etc, texting is unlikely to go away. This is one of the few areas where government mandated bridges may be required to allow for interoperability.

It still boggles my mind that here we are in 2023, and we still don't have a way to universally and interoperably.... "send text over the Internet to someone in real time". This should be dead simple. Yet, every chat app is still incompatible with every other chat app, and no company evidently sees any value in fixing this. And, whenever a new chat app emerges, lo and behold, it's also incompatible with every other chat app. This incompatibility is obviously a deliberate choice companies are making, not an insurmountable technical challenge.

Re: It's time to stop texting

#35

Post by jamespwilliams »

johnea wrote: post #12

email still rules! In every way described in the article. The fact that socially, one is "laughable" is really a laugh at the tech illiterate. A good email client and server, offering instantaneous message transfer and notification is infinitely more secure and functional than any "messaging" "app". A tech savvy person can easily run their own mail server, or migrate their history from one vendor to another. Try that…

Email falls at the very first hurdle presented in the article (“No privacy whatsoever” applies just as well to email as it does to SMS).

Re: It's time to stop texting

#36

Post by henrikschroder »

theonlybutlet wrote: post #26
Rayhem wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah, this feels a lot like saying "My god, people, stop using telephones! Facetime has video! And the bitrate ! It's a million times higher! It's 2023, why would anyone use a POTS call?!" Sure, nicer technical specs are...nice, but they're a far, far second to solving a problem. In an sms world: Problem: I need to contact a new acquaintance. Solution: Exchange phone numbers because everyone has them. Text. Or call.…

In the rest of the world the answer is simply Whatsapp. China it's WeChat. No need to discuss. You can also see if their contact is in the app.

No, that is not true, and five seconds of googling could have told you that.

Re: It's time to stop texting

#37

Post by _dain_ »

schvenk wrote: post #2

Just published. Abstract: Suppose you had two choices when chatting with your friends. The first will give you a great messaging experience, but you’ll need to sign up for a new app. The second requires no sign-up, but sometimes fails to deliver messages; sends tiny, blurry photos and videos; only works on your phone; confuses all your friends; and offers no privacy whatsoever. That choice is real. And if you’re like…

>confuses all your friends

who exactly is confused by SMS?

Re: It's time to stop texting

#39

Post by nerdjon »

theonlybutlet wrote: post #26
Rayhem wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah, this feels a lot like saying "My god, people, stop using telephones! Facetime has video! And the bitrate ! It's a million times higher! It's 2023, why would anyone use a POTS call?!" Sure, nicer technical specs are...nice, but they're a far, far second to solving a problem. In an sms world: Problem: I need to contact a new acquaintance. Solution: Exchange phone numbers because everyone has them. Text. Or call.…

In the rest of the world the answer is simply Whatsapp. China it's WeChat. No need to discuss. You can also see if their contact is in the app.

The second one is such a horrible thing that I wish it was blocked by the OS. Stop giving apps access to your entire contacts!

I did not consent to those companies knowing my phone number, name, and likely other information!

But you clicked a little button that they can so its completely fine! \s

That is likely my single biggest pet peeve of the current state of tech is other people being able to consent to MY information being gobbled up just because they clicked a damn button.

Re: It's time to stop texting

#40

Post by below43 »

nerdjon wrote: post #10

I understand the concerns that they are bringing up, but I feel like saying just download another app completely misses the point of my SMS is so popular. It is just... there. It does what I need it to do without standing in my way of communicating. It is also a standard that is not at the whim of a specific company shutting down a major service (that I am aware of) to continue communicating. I struggled for a while…

Yes, I don't think replacing SMS with a private company/single organisation as the messaging platform provider is the solution (which is why I also count out WhatsApp also, despite currently relying on it heavily to communicate with Android users).

I think in the end we need a cross-platform messaging protocol that replaces SMS/MMS that is not reliant on a single app vendor, provides end-to-end encryption and will be supported by mobile network providers.

I can see why Google/Android's pushing for iMessage to be an open standard (they have a page dedicated to this that looks like it's written by a war propaganda writer: https://www.android.com/get-the-message/). It would be nice, but it's also good marketing for iPhones so I fail so see why Apple will play ball unless the likes of the EU implement legislation to make it happen.

Note: I'm not sure the assumption that only the US is dependent on SMS is accurate (I think that it's a standard that works globally and is currently relied on by majority of countries AFAIK).

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