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Comment by FlownScepter | Hacker News Reader

A nonexhaustive list of FaceTime alternatives: Skype, Facebook Messenger, Discord, Zoom, GoToMeeting, Google Hangouts, Cisco Webex, Microsoft Teams, Spike, ICQ, Tox, Viber, WhatsApp, Line, WeChat, Wire.

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Oh come on, who hates their mother enough to make her use Webex?

/shudder

You don't know my mother. :P

This brings up an interesting question: should companies be held accountable for the network effects generated by their products on users (not competitors)?

I’d argue not, as long as users can still achieve the same goal in a different way, and it doesn’t worsen their quality of life.

For instance, in this context, the OP’s mother can still do a phone call, or agree to use a different software - which, by the way, is probably free.

None of those are FaceTime, which is what OP's mother uses.

That would be the meaning of "alternatives," yes.

It's not an alternative if it does not meet the necessary conditions for use.

Companies have exclusive control of their own products basically by definition. Claiming that there's some sort of monopolistic behavior inherent in a company deciding where and how you can buy their product is absolute shark-jumping.

That's a poor definition. Many companies are regulated in a manner where their services must be open to competition to access and use.

Almost no companies are regulated in this manner.

Sure they are; look outside the USA and you'll find many the world over. For instance, Canadian telecoms must provide access to their networks at minimal wholesale prices for competitors to enjoy.

The USA simply isn't a leading innovator in this regard.

Yes, the condition of being named facetime is not met. That's the point of ALTERNATIVES.

This is an incredible jump. By this logic, literally any format or given protocol can be called into question if it isn't 100% transferable between all platforms. That basically renders everything newer than line telephones, email and SMS as monopolistic.

Hell, even the different cellular carriers fail this definition because you can't use a Verizon sim card to access AT&T.

Only if the provider has reached a market position where their behaviour can adversely effect captive users.

The Verizon/AT&T comparison is interesting; because it wasn't so long ago that phones were locked to carriers.

Regulation could and should pry open the private networks of large software companies to facilitate healthy competition.

This is like complaining you can't gmail someone from your hotmail account.

If I couldn't send an email to a gmail account from a hotmail account then something is wrong.

But I literally can email somebody from email-provider a to email-provider b. But, lets be realistic, if the email would be discovered/invented today, that would not be the case ;-)

This is true; every non-ephemeral messaging system on social networks is a replacement for email. A poor replacement.

If they are a poor replacement, why does anyone use them?

A better question is why does anyone still use email if these alternatives are superior.

Enter Google AMP for Email: https://amp.dev/about/email/

You can, though. Email is interoperable, which is why you don't see a bunch of people calling for gmail to be "broken up" (though there have been complaints about the weird anticompetitive stuff they've done to try and build a moat around gmail, I haven't seen anything come out of it)

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