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It's time to stop texting

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Re: It's time to stop texting

#171

Post by daveslash »

Rayhem wrote: post #86
daveslash wrote: post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"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…

I had a similar conversation with some folks regarding streaming a while ago.

Friend: Man, I can never settle on something to watch on Netflix/Hulu/Disney+, etc.... It would be nice I could pick a genre and the streaming service is just rotating through a list of popular titles of that genre - something that's just always on that anyone can tune into.

Me: TV. You're thinking of TV.

Re: It's time to stop texting

#172

Post by henrikschroder »

progman32 wrote: post #122
henrikschroder wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

What did you find?

For example this map:

https://www.similarweb.com/blog/research/market-research/wor...

This map also only shows the most popular, but that doesn't mean it's the dominant messaging app in that country. It's very, very messy.

Re: It's time to stop texting

#173

Post by henrikschroder »

daveslash wrote: post #171
Rayhem wrote: post #86

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

I had a similar conversation with some folks regarding streaming a while ago. Friend: Man, I can never settle on something to watch on Netflix/Hulu/Disney+, etc.... It would be nice I could pick a genre and the streaming service is just rotating through a list of popular titles of that genre - something that's just always on that anyone can tune into. Me: TV. You're thinking of TV.

I really miss that feature of broadcast TV. I know there's some solutions for Netflix, but they're desktop only, and not built-in to their apps.

Unfortunately, the economic incentives for Netflix and similar means they'll never ever develop an app like that, because they want to discourage long-tail viewing.

Re: It's time to stop texting

#175

Post by heelix »

When everything else hits the fan, SMS still ends up somewhat working. Might not be enough bandwidth for a call or application - but in an emergency, the best chance for getting a message out on a crappy network is still texting. Might take a bit of tries, but it will be the first to work.

Re: It's time to stop texting

#176

Post by spiralx »

smcin wrote: post #15
andrewfromx wrote: post #4

I still remember the day when it dawned on me that everyone, like even cool people, could get SMS messages. It was that tipping point when enough people had phones 24/7 and suddenly it wasn't a very nerdy thing to do. Pre this time, the idea of sending an email to ask someone out for a date for example was just laughable. But a txt? It was very different. Still to this day if you meet someone new and get "their numbe…

What year was that tipping point, IYO? in the US

In the UK I remember the first time a friend had one which was in 1994 when I was 17. A year later I went to university and in 1995/6 almost nobody there had a mobile phone, the year after maybe 20% of students had them, and by my final year (97/98) almost everyone had one - so in the UK I'd say the tipping point was probably 1997, possibly triggered by affording pre-pay mobile phones becoming available in major stores and supermarkets.

Just checked Wikipedia, seems that's right:

> The concept was further developed by Vodafone UK, who in Oct 1997 launched 'Pay as you Talk', packaging a GSM phone with a prepay tariff, and retailing it in new kinds of mass merchandiser retailers such as Woolworths and Argos and one year later into supermarkets such as Tesco (previously mobile phones had only been sold in specialist phone retailers). Customers could buy the product outright for £149 (reducing to £99 very shortly afterwards) which came with credit and then top up as they needed. Pay as you Talk went on to be the market leading prepay proposition in the UK for many years attracting millions of new mobile customers.

I was a holdout for another year or so, right up until I started trying to meet up with people in the centre of London at the busiest times of the weekend lol.

Re: It's time to stop texting

#177

Post by FalconSensei »

daveslash wrote: post #171
Rayhem wrote: post #86

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

I had a similar conversation with some folks regarding streaming a while ago. Friend: Man, I can never settle on something to watch on Netflix/Hulu/Disney+, etc.... It would be nice I could pick a genre and the streaming service is just rotating through a list of popular titles of that genre - something that's just always on that anyone can tune into. Me: TV. You're thinking of TV.

> It would be nice I could pick a genre and the streaming service is just rotating through a list of popular titles of that genre

Although I would say in this case it's not exactly analog with TV, for two main reasons: ads, and picking a genre. In general, TV channels don't stick to a specific genre, even when it's right on the name (like History Channel).

Also, I doubt your friend would actually want a live, always on thing. They might just end up upset that everything's already mid-way through, or that they can't pause. Netflix "random" feature makes more sense, and I guess even more if you could choose a genre.

edit: seems Netflix doesn't have the 'random' feature anymore

Re: It's time to stop texting

#178

Post by josephcsible »

valarauko wrote: post #142
josephcsible wrote: post #16

There's one gigantic advantage to SMS that no alternative app has come close to matching: your phone number is yours, so even if Verizon decides to drop you as a customer, you can move to one of their competitors and still be able to receive messages from everyone you could before. If you use WhatsApp and Meta decides to ban you, you're out of luck unless you gave a second means of communication to everyone you used…

> if you use WhatsApp and Meta decides to ban you Genuine Q: is this something that ever happens?

Yes:

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9309038

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14415265

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24776748

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25475751

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25881112

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25884019

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=31577325

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33015769

Re: It's time to stop texting

#179

Post by Groxx »

tzs wrote: post #152
LarryMullins wrote: post #109

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Then they're not required to allow you to port your number, and telecoms rarely do anything user-friendly-but-internally-costly that they're not legally required to do. They're not required to do it, and they rarely let you do anything that isn't legally required? Something doesn't add up here, because telecoms letting you port your mobile number to another provider is the status quo. I can't remember the last I he…

When he said "unless you move out of their service area" he should have said "unless you move to a different geographic area". Here is a summary of the rules [1] in the US. Key points from that page: • If you're switching service providers and remaining in the same geographic area, you can keep your existing phone number. This process – often referred to as phone number porting – can be done between wireline, IP and…

Where "geographic area" can mean "moved a block, no longer technically in the same municipal area", yes.

I'll give you one guess why I know this.

Yes, most cases port just fine. I've ported multiple times successfully too. But no, your number is not "yours". It's the telecom's, and they decide if you can keep it or not... and they have a history of choosing so poorly that they are now legally required to make a better choice most of the time. It really does not imply good things about trust in their future behavior.

Re: It's time to stop texting

#180

Post by josephcsible »

digitallyfree wrote: post #113
josephcsible wrote: post #16

There's one gigantic advantage to SMS that no alternative app has come close to matching: your phone number is yours, so even if Verizon decides to drop you as a customer, you can move to one of their competitors and still be able to receive messages from everyone you could before. If you use WhatsApp and Meta decides to ban you, you're out of luck unless you gave a second means of communication to everyone you used…

Meta, Google, etc. also sometimes randomly ban accounts for reasons unknown (AI detecting "suspicious" behavior, etc.), whereas I have never heard of phone companies doing this.

It's not nearly as common with phone companies as it is with the FAANGs, but it's definitely not unheard of either, e.g., https://www.reddit.com/r/legaladvice/comments/13j1p9/att_has...
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