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Blackberry commanded the same level of loyalty via BBM ages ago. Apple has definitely refined that strategy with iMessage. The network effects of it are very strong (in the markets where it is dominant, anyway).

Meanwhile, Google is content to just rename their chat app every two years with zero coherent strategy. Would it be so hard to make an Android messaging service that doesn’t suck?

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They would have done that ages ago I think. They could have made the „default“ Android messaging app similar to iMessage.

But couldn‘t because they needed to keep the OEMs (mostly Samsung) and regulators at bay. Android needed to be open in the beginning so Google could catch up and overtake iOS. But obviously there are drawbacks (from their perspective) if you don‘t control the whole ecosystem including hardware.

It's called whatsapp. Doesn't suck, is multi platform, has a bunch of features, and the end to end encryption means that all the privacy fears people have are FUD. Only valid complaint I have is that they are too restrictive with their bot api, can't really experiment with chat bots unless you are are an established company already, and established companies are not great in experimenting.

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