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Beeper Mini is back

blog.beeper.com

761–770 of 1001 posts

Re: Beeper Mini is back

#761

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It hardly matters, almost everyone on earth uses WhatsApp for group chats.

I'm not American and I've never seen anyone use WhatsApp. I only use it to text my family back in Morocco. Facebook Messenger is even more universal than WhatsApp in my experience

It depends entirely on your social circles. That’s why all these discussions about $some_platform being completely useless because of course everyone uses $other_platform are completely pointless. I haven’t seen any of these in which there was any useful information or even a hint of looking things in perspective. It’s only people telling everyone else that no platform is relevant except for their pet app.

Re: Beeper Mini is back

#762
post #742

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> how do they solve it? Release iMessage on Android. If there is a concern that it wouldn't be secure with Google controlling it, then they could put it out on F-Droid, which would simultaneously prove that they're serious and also undermine Google's own efforts at controlling the culture war.

But then they wouldn’t be able to claim that alternative app stores are bad for consumers.

The presupposition was "let's assume it was an engineering problem, how would they solve it". Obviously we can revert it back to a business choice rather than engineering problem rather trivially.

Re: Beeper Mini is back

#763
post #726
post #418

Not living in US so it's fun to see people poking at big corporations like the mouse-and-cat chase of ad-blockers and anti-ad-blockers. Unfortunately, in the end, it is usually the big companies that have both the moral and technical high grounds, just like YouTube and Reddit did. Also funny to see HN trashes on Google for their Web Environment Integrity while Apple pulling off the biggest attestation scheme in histo…

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Re: Beeper Mini is back

#764
post #723

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Did AOL really win in the end though? My youth was in the late 90s and 2000s and I don’t know a single soul that used AOL, ICQ, or Yahoo. I imagine all of them must have been hoping for the reverse at that point, access to MSN.

Yeah, what? I grew up (in the same era) using AIM and Yahoo, ICQ was a little before my prime. Everyone I talk to about those days used them as well. MSN was fine but AIM and Yahoo were where it was at for the bulk of my early years of instant messaging with friends. At one point a friend even made me an AIM account because I was using MSN and they wanted to chat with me but didn't want to do it through MSN. Obviousl…

Perhaps it’s geographically correlated, I’m from The Netherlands, which would be West+Central Europe in terms of cultural zeitgeist. Would map neatly to the iMessage / WhatsApp divide too, if for different reasons.

Re: Beeper Mini is back

#765

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Source? Of the many group chats I'm involved in, exactly one of them uses WhatsApp. (I'm American, for context.)

In the US, sure. Very few of the people in Earth live there.

But very few of the people on Earth live where you live, either. What’s the point?

People I know in India tend to use WhatsApp. People I know in Europe tend to use whatever shit is popular where they live. Discord, Telegram, FB Messenger, iMessage for those with iPhones, SMSes as a default, you name it. Again, what’s the point?

Re: Beeper Mini is back

#766
post #15

> Android and iPhone customers desperately want to be able to chat together with high quality images/video, encryption, emojis, typing status, read receipts, and all modern chat features. There are numerous chat apps with those features, so I can’t see why people were “desperate” about it at all. Better yet, those existing chat apps aren’t likely to stop working tomorrow.

None of the existing chat apps have established themselves as viable alternatives

Meta has trashed their privacy image so FB Messenger/WhatsApp non-starters for lots of Americans. Signal, telegram don't have enough PR, 90% of Americans have never heard of them. Kik was popular but died due to their financial trouble. Discord/Groupme have found success by marketing themselves towards particular niches, but people don't really think of them as general-purpose messaging apps

Re: Beeper Mini is back

#767
post #743

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Let's imagine it is an engineering problem; how do they solve it? Give a disclaimer that "your communications are not encrypted" and turn the bubbles maybe light green?

Apple would prefer you buy an iPhone.

That's not an engineering solution.

Re: Beeper Mini is back

#768

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In the US, sure. Very few of the people in Earth live there.

But very few of the people on Earth live where you live, either. What’s the point? People I know in India tend to use WhatsApp. People I know in Europe tend to use whatever shit is popular where they live. Discord, Telegram, FB Messenger, iMessage for those with iPhones, SMSes as a default, you name it. Again, what’s the point?

WhatsApp is by far the most popular option overall and in Europe too. Facebook Messenger and WeChat are also popular.

iMessage is only used in the US.

Re: Beeper Mini is back

#769

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Source? Of the many group chats I'm involved in, exactly one of them uses WhatsApp. (I'm American, for context.)

In the US, sure. Very few of the people in Earth live there.

But how many of apples users live there?

Re: Beeper Mini is back

#770

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not American and I've never seen anyone use WhatsApp. I only use it to text my family back in Morocco. Facebook Messenger is even more universal than WhatsApp in my experience

Sure, that one is popular too. My point was that almost no one uses iMessage group chats.

Definitely not the case for Americans
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