I don't see the win for Automattic here. Beeper seems to be a dead product with its main use case gutted.
Are there other capabilities that I'm missing?
Either way, congrats to the team!
Beeper acquired by Automattic
201–210 of 310 posts
Re: Beeper acquired by Automattic
#202How much of this is a long-term bet that the US DOJ's antitrust case against Apple (at least the iMessage-specific argument) will result in the forced opening up of the platform, such that Beeper (now Automattic) will sustainably function?
I'm sure that's a non-zero factor. Plus Beeper has a lot of name recognition due to their epic standoff
Re: Beeper acquired by Automattic
#203I really like Beeper, and congrats to them for getting acquired, but my first reaction is "aw damn how long until the parts I love about Beeper get incredible journey'd away". The new android app is really good, the desktop app has always been a step up from other Element apps I've used (it is a distant fork, these days), I don't have iMessage, but it works great with Matrix and Signal and WhatsApp a ton of other "ra…
Automattic rescued Pocket Casts from NPR, and made them open source. Tumblr from Verizon. In general they're very good stewards.
Oh wow, thank you for posting this! I did not realize that they open sourced Pocket Casts. That is really neat of them.
Re: Beeper acquired by Automattic
#204Earlier quoted context omitted.
That's a pessimistic take to say that Automattic will close up Beeper and make it a worse a product.
I think it's more of a criticism of asking the question as if that was ever going to be given as an answer, regardless of what the actual answer is. in what scenario do you see anyone giving the negative answer truthfully?
I think the flavor of the answer says a lot. A vague negative answer will make me suspicious, as will one based in good intentions and moonbeams. But a negative answer rooted in principle and mentioning specific choices is one I'll take more seriously.
Enshittification is the default path for leaders with MBA brain, but some still manage to avoid it.
Re: Beeper acquired by Automattic
#205The hopeless romantic in me is hoping the real reason Automattic acquired them was actually to get some useful developer documentation written for the Beepy.
Given how bad the WordPress documentation is, it's a weird hope to have from that company.
Interesting, I think the WordPress docs are pretty decent. There's always room for improvement, but I love how it links and shows you the source code. They could definitely expand documentation coverage for plugins and stuff though, that's a little lacking.
Re: Beeper acquired by Automattic
#206The Verge reports: > Since then, Beeper has rolled out some security upgrades that change the way the app handles security and prevent Beeper itself from seeing unencrypted messages from Signal, WhatsApp, and other encrypted apps. Screenshots of Beeper’s desktop and mobile apps. How?
Beeper has been talking about running on-device bridges rather than server-side bridges. So presumably that would allow encryption to the user's device, then re-encrypted on-device to Matrix then sent to Beeper.
Wow, that's ... surprising.
Re: Beeper acquired by Automattic
#207Earlier quoted context omitted.
Probably on device encryption before anything is sent through their servers
I'm sorry, but that's not an answer. WhatsApp encrypts the message E2E, and then Beeper is bridging it into Matrix. The only way this would make any sense is if they've bridged E2E all the way through to ... the clients? Like, it doesn't make any sense.
Well, now I regret that this comment sounds a bit dismissive, if another reply is true and they run the bridge locally. That's... impressive, and still surprising to think about.
I'd honestly be fine with accepting the compromise of hosted bridges, especially since they seem to offer the ability to self-host the bridges, while using Beepers' Matrix infra. Gives them some extra cred in my book.
Re: Beeper acquired by Automattic
#208This is an odd match, and at a time when the strategic value of Beeper seems to be very low.
> Matt, Automattic’s CEO, and I have known each other for years
Could it perhaps be a favor for a friend to give a plausible reason for ejecting from the business without admitting failure?
Re: Beeper acquired by Automattic
#209I trust Automattic implicitly. This seems like a good move.
Oh, you really should not.
- Never trust ANY money-making company IMPLICILTY.
- Go to https://apple.wordpress.com
See the cookie banner
Click View Partners in the bottom left
Browse that list, check the details
Find the company that Matt has sold your data to for over 11 years.
The data Matt sells is for every user and every visitor not just on wordpress.com (who clicks Agree, but we know most people do)
Are you still happy?
Re: Beeper acquired by Automattic
#210and they're rewriting Beeper in PHP as a WordPress plugin! Kidding of course, but on a serious note what's the strategic value of Beeper here to Automattic? From the post: > Automattic is doubling down on chat after their acquisition last year of Texts.com, a messaging app with a similar mission. Our teams and products will merge, and I will take on the role leading the team as Head of Messaging. It will take a bit o…
Automattic also acquired Pocket Casts, so they don't only own things that fit into the WP ecosystem.