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It's time to stop texting

dfeldman.medium.com

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Re: It's time to stop texting

#81

Post by benjaminwootton »

ariehkovler wrote: post #43
_yb2s wrote: post #25

This is silly, most people have never even heard of Signal or Telegram, and only 25-50% of my contacts have WhatsApp. I could either immediately message anyone over fast and reliable SMS, but I should instead ask them to install some app first? Moreover, despite all of the hate, iMessage actually works great. If the other person happens to have an iPhone (as most of my contacts do), they automatically get all these m…

> only 25-50% of my contacts have WhatsApp In many countries, EVERYONE has WhatsApp. In Israel it's how your boss, your work team, your kid's daycare, businesses and government offices communicate with you.

I wonder if this is a US thing as WhatsApp seems to be dominant in Europe and the Middle East, whilst Asia has WeChat and Line.

Re: It's time to stop texting

#82

Post by [deleted] »

istillwritecode wrote: post #67

It's time to stop using medium for your blogging. I won't sign up for an account to read stuff - the world already has too many accounts. I get that the author doesn't want to use SMS. I mostly use signal, but I sometimes use SMS to communicate with people who prefer it. I won't use whatsapp or telegram, for no particular reason other than I don't have to. Some of my friends contact me via twitter messaging - that's…

[deleted]

Re: It's time to stop texting

#83

Post by pwinnski »

klodolph wrote: post #70

> Apple uses the green bubbles as a PR tactic to make Android users seem inferior. I've heard this sentiment before but it seems nothing short of insane to me. What's the foundation for this?

It's counter-factual fantasy. The color of the chat bubbles are blue when your messages are sent using E2E-secure full-featured iMessage, and green otherwise. It's your chat bubbles, by the way; messages you receive are always gray, regardless of how they were sent to you.

It's not just PR, it's an important signal.

Re: It's time to stop texting

#84

Post by [deleted] »

einpoklum wrote: post #22

> The first ... will give you a great messaging experience Already sounds suspicious. > you’ll need to sign up for a new app to get it. Sign up? Sounds like somebody is running a centralized server that's tracking me then. > The second ... sometimes fails to deliver messages without telling you It tells me when the message cannot be sent. I don't like it that some central authority knows what's the status of my corre…

[deleted]

Re: It's time to stop texting

#86

Post by Rayhem »

daveslash wrote: post #68
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.…

"My God people, stop using AM/FM Radio! It's an analog signal, and this is a digital world! The quality and bit rate is so low! Use your phone + Spotify + Bluetooth for music! Use your phone + podcasts + Bluetooth for news, talk, and opinion, or switch to satellite radio! " Problem: In breaking news moments like this, there should be a type of podcast you can listen to in real time, easily accessible for free. Soluti…

This basically happened to me when a friend was scheduling group videogames for the week. "If X and Y had Prime then they could order a switch and have it in time for Friday with free shipping!"*

Gosh, if only there were some sort of local Amazon warehouse that I could travel to to procure the items I require when I require them. They'd probably have a lot of items stored! In fact, some of these stores of items might even cater to one or two types of items only, perhaps necessitating multiple stores at different locations!

* This was a real conversation from a human being.

Re: It's time to stop texting

#88

Post by Enginerrrd »

schvenk wrote: post #14
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…

(Original author here) I agree with everything you said. SMS is popular for excellent reasons that are hard to overcome at this point. I wrote the article not because I expect it to create a behavioral shift at scale, but for the folks who, if they knew more, might care enough to do something—who agree with me that while sticking with SMS is easier than switching, maybe the benefits of switching are great enough to j…

Since you're here, I really dislike the opening paragraph:

>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 to get it.

The problem is, that totally misses the actual friction point. It's not just that YOU have to do this, but so would ALL of your friends. Given how salient the rest of the post is, I'm certain this was intentional, and so it turns me off as a reader immediately because you are opening with something so disingenuous.

Re: It's time to stop texting

#89

Post by neogodless »

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…

> The first will give you a great messaging experience, but you’ll need to sign up for a new app to get it.

Yeah - they start with a false dichotomy.

The above "first" requires you and everyone you ever want to exchange messages with to sign up for a new app (the SAME app) to get it.

Re: It's time to stop texting

#90

Post by Barrin92 »

I still find the privacy argument incredibly vacuous in the context of direct messaging, same as with email. The issue isn't some NSA guy being thwarted by your encryption, it's the people you talk to either intentionally or accidentally leaking the content of your messages.

For the average person the thoughtless forwarder or copyer of messages is a much bigger threat than any shadowy entity so I find these recommendations of trading convenience for 'security' very wrong.

>"Your chats are there to read, maybe even by accident, like a postcard passing through a post office."

in my opinion this is actually the only sane default assumption for any casual direct message or email format and the way security is framed is priming people for the wrong threat. The Verizon SMS guy is literally less likely to screw you over than whoever you're texting. Modern day's Stranger Danger.

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