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Comment by rblatz | Hacker News Reader

How does that differ from AIM? Eventually social networks migrate platforms, and the old one starts to get stagnant and finally perishes.

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Although it may have the same fate, AIM suffers from being computer only when it was in its prime. (maybe always) Anywhere I go I can socialize on whatsapp, or snapchat or whatever app.

I think you're touching on something here. Around the launch of the iPhone (and rise of Androids) many companies that got on the mobile-first bandwagon survived, and those that assumed web-only to be the best way really quickly died.

I don't think it was purely Facebook that killed MySpace and AIM, it's that they didn't get on phones quickly enough.

What made Whatsapp popular is that it worked just like SMS. Users are identified by phone numbers, so you can use your existing contact list.

However unlike SMS it didn't cost eye-watering amounts of money to use. Whatsapp never became popular in the USA because most people on pay-monthly contracts received large SMS allowances.

In the rest of the world, networks felt threatened by SMS -- if texts were too cheap then people would stop making phone calls! So it was universally crippled with ridiculous limits and fees. Even in 2018 it costs me a lot of money to send an SMS, and I don't know anybody under the age of 35 who uses it.

Why would anyone use AIM when our primary device is a cellphone these days? iMessage, What’s App, and other apps provide more functionality that is right at my finger tips at all times.

AIM and AOL were popular when we didn’t have texts or even cellphones. It wasn’t so common to give kids cellphones early in those days.

AIM could have become Whatsapp if it was smart.

Absolutely. The same things I liked about AIM are the same things I like about iMessage and what’s app.

As another person pointed out, I can send the message to the people I want not followers.

AIM was available as an app on iOS App Store's launch day on July 11, 2008. But push notifications for the iOS Platform didn't arrive until June 2009, so it was cumbersome -- daresay awful: messages only arrived when it was in the foreground [1].

Within a few months of push notifications first being available, WhatsApp was released for iOS, in November 2009.

[1] https://www.macworld.com/article/1135141/aim_review.html

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