The Last Message Sent on AIM • Hacker News Board

Re: The Last Message Sent on AIM

#31

Post by beowulfey » Mon, Mar 01, 2021, 10:10 AM UTC

elcomet wrote: post #18

spike021 wrote: post #16

I really miss AIM. It was the way you knew friends were available to chat. It was much closer to in-person conversation than most media we use nowadays. It's not uncommon for someone to {iMessage, SMS, FB Message, IG Message, etc.} me while I'm otherwise busy. Then, I need to find a second to let them know of this (unless I either totally drop the ball or consciously decide to not reply). I also need to let them know…

> Then, I need to find a second to let them know of this (unless I either totally drop the ball or consciously decide to not reply). This seems strange to me. I view IM as asynchronous. If someone messages me while I'm busy, I'll just reply later. And I don't expect people to answer immediatly. No need to sync to chat together (of course if we're both available we can chat in sync).

yeah, for me treating im as asynchronous is redundant. that’s why we had email. aim was a phone call. but i also treat it asynchronous these days and might even step away from a conversation mid thought. i hate when i do it but it’s a very bad habit encouraged by the apps. ah well

Re: The Last Message Sent on AIM

#32

Post by eznzt » Mon, Mar 01, 2021, 10:23 AM UTC

elcomet wrote: post #18

spike021 wrote: post #16

I really miss AIM. It was the way you knew friends were available to chat. It was much closer to in-person conversation than most media we use nowadays. It's not uncommon for someone to {iMessage, SMS, FB Message, IG Message, etc.} me while I'm otherwise busy. Then, I need to find a second to let them know of this (unless I either totally drop the ball or consciously decide to not reply). I also need to let them know…

> Then, I need to find a second to let them know of this (unless I either totally drop the ball or consciously decide to not reply). This seems strange to me. I view IM as asynchronous. If someone messages me while I'm busy, I'll just reply later. And I don't expect people to answer immediatly. No need to sync to chat together (of course if we're both available we can chat in sync).

I hate that it is asynchronous now. I liked it back before when you talked to someone who was online and you knew he was engaged in the conversation. Now all of that is gone. As you say "I'll just reply later"—I hate that.

Re: The Last Message Sent on AIM

#33

Post by saberdancer » Mon, Mar 01, 2021, 10:26 AM UTC

CGamesPlay wrote: post #8

I was browsing through a backup of an old computer that ran Pidgin and had chat logging on. One of the last AIM messages I ever received went like this: Conversation at Mon Jan 15 01:16:36 2007 (01:16:36) Megan: omg it's ryan. (01:17:41) Megan: and then in time... (01:17:53) Megan: the friends faded away (01:18:14) Megan: and the instanst IMs that'd open were deleted (01:18:28) Megan: and responses never came (01:18:…

Did you get back to Megan?

Re: The Last Message Sent on AIM

#34

Post by agumonkey » Mon, Mar 01, 2021, 10:29 AM UTC

tinco wrote: post #20

It was such a senseless destruction. People miss AIM, people miss MSN Messenger and just a couple years later it turned out instant messaging platforms were worth billions. It's still insane to me these corporations shut down perfectly viable platforms that were still used by millions. The short sightedness and pettiness of these directors is something of legend, I hope there's a chapter about this in new management…

Another point of surprise is that these things grew somehow organically. Nobody went onto AIM or MSN because it's gonna revolutionize anything, it was just a simple need, simple programs.. no biggie. They're gone and now it's replaced by things that try to be grandiose and keep changing every year (or die ala Google) because the big new model is not right and they have a new big idea to chase.

Re: The Last Message Sent on AIM

#35

Post by xerxesaa » Mon, Mar 01, 2021, 10:38 AM UTC

spike021 wrote: post #16

I really miss AIM. It was the way you knew friends were available to chat. It was much closer to in-person conversation than most media we use nowadays. It's not uncommon for someone to {iMessage, SMS, FB Message, IG Message, etc.} me while I'm otherwise busy. Then, I need to find a second to let them know of this (unless I either totally drop the ball or consciously decide to not reply). I also need to let them know…

I feel like this was more due to how we used computers at the time rather than AIM itself. You can still set your status on most messaging platforms, but we're now always online and people assume you'll respond later if you're too busy.

Up until the early 2000's, most people were still getting online using a dial-up connection on a PC. That meant you had to make a conscious decision to get online and block off your phone line for other purposes. At least for me, the very fact that I was online meant that I wasn't busy and was open to chatting with my friends.

Re: The Last Message Sent on AIM

#36

Post by agumonkey » Mon, Mar 01, 2021, 10:43 AM UTC

spike021 wrote: post #16

I really miss AIM. It was the way you knew friends were available to chat. It was much closer to in-person conversation than most media we use nowadays. It's not uncommon for someone to {iMessage, SMS, FB Message, IG Message, etc.} me while I'm otherwise busy. Then, I need to find a second to let them know of this (unless I either totally drop the ball or consciously decide to not reply). I also need to let them know…

the AIM era suffered from the duplication of messengers. I remember using Trillian to merge aim/icq/msn and later Pidgin.

Also, I forgot how to register on aim but i'm pretty sure it wasn't tied to name or phone number :) such a wild life

Re: The Last Message Sent on AIM

#37

Post by tda » Mon, Mar 01, 2021, 10:54 AM UTC

lotsofpulp wrote: post #4

toast0 wrote: post #3

The shutdown of AIM makes me sad, but I had maybe one holdout contact left (who I still speak with, but on other services). I'm sure there's all sort of business lessons we could learn here. Among them that an early lead doesn't always lead to lasting success. AIM federated with Apple iChat, Facebook Messenger, and Google Talk, as well as ICQ after they purchased it over the years, but that didn't turn into anything…

WhatsApp offered two things for my social graph: 1) got rid of usernames/passwords. This was a surprisingly high barrier for non tech literate people to pass, and WhatsApp made it dead simple for them to download from app store, install, and start chatting with their contacts. 2) SMS verification eliminated spam And the timing was perfect. Data plans and smartphones were just coming into the fore, and WhatsApp popped…

I recall having MSN on a symbian smartphone just before iPhones even existed. Really cool and all, but I could only communicate to a handful of people with it. SMS was the de-facto only way, always 1-1 and charged per message. Internet 2g/3g was being pushed for low prices (10 EUR/month for unlimited use) but there wasn't really a mass market yet. I could tether my laptop to my phone abut that was really something exceptional, but most people were like "who needs internet on a phone?" Had too look it up, this was just 14 years ago.

Then about 6? years ago almost overnight everyone (including mom) had a smartphone with Whatsapp and SMS/MMS was a thing of the past.

Re: The Last Message Sent on AIM

#38

Post by taurath » Mon, Mar 01, 2021, 10:59 AM UTC

tda wrote: post #37

lotsofpulp wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

WhatsApp offered two things for my social graph: 1) got rid of usernames/passwords. This was a surprisingly high barrier for non tech literate people to pass, and WhatsApp made it dead simple for them to download from app store, install, and start chatting with their contacts. 2) SMS verification eliminated spam And the timing was perfect. Data plans and smartphones were just coming into the fore, and WhatsApp popped…

I recall having MSN on a symbian smartphone just before iPhones even existed. Really cool and all, but I could only communicate to a handful of people with it. SMS was the de-facto only way, always 1-1 and charged per message. Internet 2g/3g was being pushed for low prices (10 EUR/month for unlimited use) but there wasn't really a mass market yet. I could tether my laptop to my phone abut that was really something ex…

I bought a helio ocean keyboard phone over an iPhone because it had AIM MSN and YIM while the iPhone did not. I thought it was great.

Re: The Last Message Sent on AIM

#39

Post by forgotmypw17 » Mon, Mar 01, 2021, 10:59 AM UTC

tinco wrote: post #20

It was such a senseless destruction. People miss AIM, people miss MSN Messenger and just a couple years later it turned out instant messaging platforms were worth billions. It's still insane to me these corporations shut down perfectly viable platforms that were still used by millions. The short sightedness and pettiness of these directors is something of legend, I hope there's a chapter about this in new management…

Generally speaking, they were shut down because they were designed in a way that they were centrally controlled by one entity which had the ability to shut them down, just like that.

Re: The Last Message Sent on AIM

#40

Post by at_a_remove » Mon, Mar 01, 2021, 11:00 AM UTC

I recall Yahoo Chat finally shutting down in December of 2012. In a sense, you could see it coming: the messaging protocols were a mess, no real attempt had been made against the spambots, the property was poorly managed during that phase where Yahoo was attempting to date anyone, everyone, in order to fix their lives.

First they killed the user-made rooms, due to some senseless pedo-panic, then some special interest rooms, and finally the service itself, even as some put-upon employee named "Robin" had to write various upbeat missives about Yahoo improving the service on the Yahoo Messenger Chat blog.

You see, they had done one thing really right in the beginning with their chat rooms -- they made a series of location-based rooms, first by continent, then country, then (for the US) state and even occasionally city. So many people either want to talk about what is going on where they live or just talk to locals that this was a great success. And yet ... destroyed. It was indicative of what I had often heard about the company, that there were some brilliant engineers with some great insights, and also that there were just metric tons of business people businessing very hard and capable of driving absolutely anything into the ground because of their inability to leave well enough alone.

It is a little amazing to me that all of these corporations just decided to shutter messaging and chat rooms in lockstep. And I suppose one did it, so they all had to or fall behind something or another.