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Beeper Mini is back

blog.beeper.com

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Re: Beeper Mini is back

#931

Post by tenacious_tuna »

krick wrote: post #843
quantumsequoia wrote: post #772

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I had to purchase an iPhone solely to use iMessage. Believe me, I would have loved to use any other internet-based chat app. But I just can't move my entire social circle to a different app. The network effects and friction are too high. The only thing end users really have control over is their own client. I don't know if they'll succeed in the long run, but I'm really rooting for beeper

Are you saying everyone in your social circle willingly vendor-locks themselves by using an app that is available only on a specific device? That sounds just comically bad. Where is that? USA? I just checked, the iPhone market share appears to be around 57% in the USA, which is sure a lot, but still it means that every second person does not have the ability to use this app. So how comes it ends up being inconvenient…

> Are you saying everyone in your social circle willingly vendor-locks themselves by using an app that is available only on a specific device?

The problem is this isn't how a non-technical audience views the problem. To them, they get a fully featured chat (rich media, reactions, hi def photos, etc) with most of their social circle. They don't have to install anything, they don't have to sign up for anything, they don't even have to remember different credentials, it just works. Best of all, it just works across their ipads and macs, too.

Sure, it doesn't work for a portion of their friends, but from their perspective, their friends are the weird ones: why wouldn't you switch to a phone that has a "better" experience like this?

> By no means there is a shortage of messaging apps and protocols

This is a bug, not a feature, in a world where there's no common clients that work across all those ecosystems. You go back to 2008ish and you have half a dozen clients that speak Jabber or XMPP. You can sign into GTalk or Facebook Messenger or (gods forbid) Yahoo Messenger all from the same application, and it all mostly works. Now you have a zillion apps and a zillion logins and some of them have nice features and some don't, but without interop, there's an upper limit to the number of chat apps people are willing to maintain to just talk to other people.

Especially when, for Apple users, the best one is already on their device.

Re: Beeper Mini is back

#932

Post by stavros »

rootusrootus wrote: post #905
unshavedyak wrote: post #540

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is it free? I have it bundled as part of my hardware purchases. Is there somewhere to get it without paying?

Is Linux free? I have a computer that won't run it.

What kind of computer is this that Linux doesn't run on, and can't you just make Linux run on it?

Re: Beeper Mini is back

#933

Post by sneak »

lazycouchpotato wrote: post #758
sneak wrote: post #690

Earlier quoted context omitted.

...which is still more than 5x the normal rate for payment processing. Reducing your price gouging from 10x to 5x isn’t exactly a kindness.

15% seems reasonable. They're not only charging to cover payment processing, there are salaries to pay for those developing the app stores, the human app reviewers (virtually non-existent in case of Google Play), storage, bandwidth, etc. Granted, both Apple and Google also earn money from ads (shame on Apple's part). In that case I can sort of see the justification to lower their cut to below 15%.

Even the normal 3% overhead for credit card payment flow charged without these monopolistic practices isn’t reasonable. Even 0.1% allows the bloodsucking rentseekers a gigantic margin, as their marginal costs are approximately ZERO.

15% is pure “you have no other options” robbery, expanding on the same thing pioneered by Visa/MC/AmEx.

All of the expenses you listed are a) trivial and b) already paid for by iPhone purchasers. Apple is a hardware company with the highest margins in the industry.

They’re double dipping, and gouging whilst they do so.

The storage and bandwidth costs of the App Store are the size of a rounding error at this scale. Furthermore, the App Store is a marketing tool and value add for the iPhone, and benefits them directly. To expect app developers to pay for it is insane.

Re: Beeper Mini is back

#934

Post by lxgr »

cortesoft wrote: post #924
lxgr wrote: post #815

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> iMessage is easily good enough that I haven't had to go find some alternative SMS app (Almost) nobody here is challenging that it is, under the condition that you communicate exclusively with iPhone users . MMS group chats are an absolute dumpster fire from an UX point of view. In some countries, a single MMS costs about half an USD as well (per recipient)!

Wait, there are still places that charge per MMS?

Some countries/providers just never stopped, especially those where MMS never really became popular and was quickly replaced by WhatsApp.

Some carriers/plans don’t even offer it.

Re: Beeper Mini is back

#935

Post by sneak »

IshKebab wrote: post #785
sneak wrote: post #669

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Beeper isn’t using Apple services (at least not in Beeper Mini, their new e2ee iMessage client), and thus is not subject to any Terms of Service from Apple. They’re publishing client software, which is protected expression provided it’s original and doesn’t infringe any trademarks or copyrights. The end users are the ones potentially violating the ToS by connecting to Apple APIs. Apple has no basis to tell Beeper to…

Someone said they are embedding Apple binaries for crypto stuff. Clear copyright infringement if so.

Only in the open source example PoC, not in the proprietary/closed source Beeper Mini. (They are not the same.)

That would be a clear and avoidable error and would get them shut down instantly.

Re: Beeper Mini is back

#936

Post by desas »

barkerja wrote: post #914
alickz wrote: post #818

Earlier quoted context omitted.

even SMS is seen as outdated here i feel

What do financial institutions where you live use to communicate TOTP codes? Here in the states, it's almost entirely TOTP codes over SMS (via a shortcode).

Usually their app, sometimes SMS.

SMS is outdated in a similar way that email is, it's something you use to receive notifications and messages from companies etc, it's not how you talk to your friends.

Re: Beeper Mini is back

#937

Post by unmole »

lxgr wrote: post #753
dontlaugh wrote: post #715

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

Well, the most and third most populous countries on Earth don't.

> Well, the most and third most populous countries on Earth don't.

WhatsApp is ubiquitous in India, the most populous country in the world.

Re: Beeper Mini is back

#938

Post by go_prodev »

hornban wrote: post #640
js2 wrote: post #471

> Messages will be sent and received via your email address rather than phone number. [...] Even worse, when iPhone customers added an Android phone number to an existing iMessage secure encrypted group chat, the Messages app would by default switch the entire group chat to using unencrypted, unsecure SMS. These two Messages features combine to create a terrible UX. When someone starts a group chat in Messages and in…

From everything I've read on the matter, I believe that the UX nightmare when you include a non-apple user is an intentional design choice, rather than an engineering problem that hasn't been solved. They want the experience to suffer when somebody outside of the ecosystem is involved so as to create social pressure for the outsider to change. The ironic part of all of this is that while the EU may be forcing Apple i…

WhatsApp is that middle ground in some parts of the world.

Upon moving to Europe we discovered that WhatsApp is the preferred way to connect with friends, employees, social groups and schools. It was actually the driving factor in me conceding and setting up a FB account.

Re: Beeper Mini is back

#939

Post by okdood64 »

ehsankia wrote: post #926
LordKeren wrote: post #26

I think one of the underlying issues is that many are now going to be hesitant to even bother with Beeper Mini anymore. I don’t think there is going to be a high tolerance for this game of cat and mouse from the end user perspective I also don’t think goading apple is going to do much here either. Regardless of the current feelings around apple’s walled garden, they are not going to suddenly keel over and give up on…

I agree that right now, most people shouldn't give this a try. But at some point it will reach a steady state. Either Beeper manages to make a client that is truly indistinguishable from old iPhones, and gets to exist for a few years, or Apple somehow manages to patch all existing iPhones in a way that makes it impossible to spoof (not sure if that's possible with old hardware that don't have a secure enclave).

> But at some point it will reach a steady state.

I highly doubt that these guys will win. I would bet 5 AAPL on it.

Re: Beeper Mini is back

#940

Post by tjmc »

realusername wrote: post #428
Longhanks wrote: post #231

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Please explain to me why that wouldn't be in anyone's interest? Why should I pay costs for server uptime and maintenance for clients that I a) did not authorize and b) did not pay for me keeping up my servers and c) actually accept that a third party is getting money for providing said access to my servers? I really don't get how Apple is to blame for protecting what they pay for.

> I really don't get how Apple is to blame for protecting what they pay for. I don't think Apple is going to get bankrupt for forwarding a few SMS, they'll be fine don't worry.

"They can afford it" is a terrible argument. There's literally no upside for Apple providing their infrastructure for free to third parties, particularly given that it's a potential vector for flooding their customers with spam.

Up until quite recently, most phone carriers metered the number of texts you could send per month and then charged extra. Many still charge per text when you're roaming overseas. Perhaps Apple could offer API access on commercial terms to third parties but that's their decision.

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