It's time to stop texting
dfeldman.medium.com
dfeldman.medium.com
It is just... there. It does what I need it to do without standing in my way of communicating. It is also a standard that is not at the whim of a specific company shutting down a major service (that I am aware of) to continue communicating.
I struggled for a while after my mom got an iPhone for her to understand the App Store. I feel like she may not fully be there but is using an iPad now solely instead of a computer so its close...ish.
Maybe this is because I do use an iPhone and most people I communicate with are using iMessage that I just don't see the other issues mentioned here. But because I use iMessage, if for some reason apple were to shut down that service... I would just revert back to using SMS and communication will mostly just continue.
Finally... If I want to start talking to a new friend I meet at the bar. I just give them my number, no conversation about which app they use or OS ever needs to happen.
Edit: I know countries outside of the US are less dependent on SMS/iMessage. But it just feels like jumping through extra hoops for something that is built in.
>Suppose you had two choices when chatting with your friends. The first will give you a great messaging experience, but you’ll need to sign up for a new app to get it.
The problem is, that totally misses the actual friction point. It's not just that YOU have to do this, but so would ALL of your friends. Given how salient the rest of the post is, I'm certain this was intentional, and so it turns me off as a reader immediately because you are opening with something so disingenuous.
And as I argue in the article, it's not essential that ALL your friends switch. Most of us deal with fragmented communication in one form or another (unfortunately). I'm probably 20% email, 40% iMessage / SMS, 30% Telegram, 10% a smattering of other things. It's not ideal but it is reality and, if nothing else, I think starting small is an effective switching strategy.
In an sms world:
Problem: I need to contact a new acquaintance.
Solution: Exchange phone numbers because everyone has them. Text. Or call.
In a post-sms world:
Problem: I need to contact a new acquaintance.
Solution? Talk about messaging apps. Find the intersection of the ones you both use. Rank by favorite if it's not an empty set, then decide on the relative merits of choosing one in the middle of both your lists, otherwise attempt evangelism. Following evangelism, regress to "Yeah, admittedly the UI has some quirks -- here's how you do <thing you want to do>."
Unfortunately, tech bro progress-at-all-costs featurejerking very often leaves a very large number of people out of the party. The elderly. The impoverished. etc. Despite the corporate mantra of all features all the time, we can actually elect to take old things and make them better instead of inventing the new hot thing all the time.
https://www.similarweb.com/blog/research/market-research/wor...
This map also only shows the most popular, but that doesn't mean it's the dominant messaging app in that country. It's very, very messy.
I'd rather not cite the below but where's smoke there's fire. This indicates Whatsapp has twice the active users of Messenger. https://www.statista.com/statistics/258749/most-popular-glob...
The problem is that given a random person off the street, how can you figure out which messenger apps you have in common? And assuming everyone outside the US uses WhatsApp like the grandparent poster I replied to did, doesn't work.
I did not consent to those companies knowing my phone number, name, and likely other information!
But you clicked a little button that they can so its completely fine! \s
That is likely my single biggest pet peeve of the current state of tech is other people being able to consent to MY information being gobbled up just because they clicked a damn button.
Germany and Switzerland have some exotic secure messengers that were quite popular (and may still be) like threema.
There was also some quite suprizing stuff. My inlaws were, until recently, using Viber. They didn’t know why (none of them are computer people). It was wild to me to discover a chat app I never heard off in a circle of people completely outside of tech.
Anyway, the only longterm solution is an open standard. Propably XMPP. Or email after all (it works, look at delta chat).
But to be fair, most consumers aren't going to care about an open standard directly; they'll care about finding and chatting with their friends. An open standard is a great way to get there when it works, but, for example, WhatApp being a de facto standard in much of the world accomplishes the same thing in those regions.
Google jumped on jabber years ago, then jumped off.
I guess. But it doesn't really explain why it continues to be so popular, to the extent that even on forums like this (where well-grounded skepticism of big tech companies like Facebook is generally taken for granted) you have Europeans acting like Americans are backwards fools for not wanting to jump into bed with Facebook.
Its simplicity, cross-platform (as people out there use Android more than iOS) and user base was and still is the big moat; there have been quite superior applications over the years, yet none of them are used as the main messenger except by some niche communities. Telegram has been there since 2013, it's quite popular because of the features but I doubt it will take over: WhatsApp is enough and everyone already knows it.
I am a bit mad at myself for not even thinking about that. I know people who still use flip phones and this basically segments them out even further.
I think we just need to look at AIM, MSN, whatever yahoo's was called. I think there is a good reason that those were very quickly replaced by just SMS. Even though I would argue that in many ways those were superior to SMS and had features that we really did not get until iMessage (for better or for worse) but we already went through this once and SMS won out.
Don't worry, you're in good company - increasingly a gigantic amount of systems just assume that you have a smart phone and are willing to use it to do everything. And that you are fine having everything tracked and logged because you did it digitally. The assumption of "everyone has phones" is absolutely absurd, and it's way too wide spread. The final evolution of this is "cashless" stores/restaurants, where you literally cannot exchange money for goods and services without having a bank account and a smart phone.
I have PCs at home and at work and a laptop that travels with me. I use these computers to do things like filling out forms, shopping, composing emails, reading PDFs, filing taxes, tracking my calendar, and otherwise interacting with businesses and governments that use computers.
A shocking number of my friends and family do all of these things on their smartphones. They're not impoverished, they might have a PC at work but none at home, they might even have an old laptop they haven't booted up in years...but they'll suffer through side-scrolling a PDF or typing on a ~3" square display (the top of their 6" display, with the bottom used for a touchscreen keyboard).
We aren't all impoverished, it can be a conscious decision.
I like how SMS just works, it's far from perfect but feels closer to an independent tool, like a hammer - with the expectation that each time you pull it out of a toolbox it will continue to remain a hammer - other than that rare occasion when the head finally drops off you can rely on it doing it's job without getting in your face asking about updated ToS and changing how you have to hold the handle every few months before you smack a nail in the wall. It's the F-91w of the digital messaging world, somewhat quirky, a bit antiquated, yet provides permanence and doesn't fuck around. I also value privacy, and I can't rely on SMS for that, which is unfortunate.
Problem: In breaking news moments like this, there should be a type of podcast you can listen to in real time, easily accessible for free.
Solution: Radio. You're thinking of Radio.
https://twitter.com/matthewkeyslive/status/12350720664134492...
Gosh, if only there were some sort of local Amazon warehouse that I could travel to to procure the items I require when I require them. They'd probably have a lot of items stored! In fact, some of these stores of items might even cater to one or two types of items only, perhaps necessitating multiple stores at different locations!
* This was a real conversation from a human being.
Friend: Man, I can never settle on something to watch on Netflix/Hulu/Disney+, etc.... It would be nice I could pick a genre and the streaming service is just rotating through a list of popular titles of that genre - something that's just always on that anyone can tune into.
Me: TV. You're thinking of TV.
Unfortunately, the economic incentives for Netflix and similar means they'll never ever develop an app like that, because they want to discourage long-tail viewing.
Although I would say in this case it's not exactly analog with TV, for two main reasons: ads, and picking a genre. In general, TV channels don't stick to a specific genre, even when it's right on the name (like History Channel).
Also, I doubt your friend would actually want a live, always on thing. They might just end up upset that everything's already mid-way through, or that they can't pause. Netflix "random" feature makes more sense, and I guess even more if you could choose a genre.
edit: seems Netflix doesn't have the 'random' feature anymore
it's super old and sounds like shit but it works really really well and is great for relaying critical information that we now cannot get
I love tuning into AM 1610 when driving through National Parks to get park information. AM is great for low-power local broadcast for recorded tourist information on repeat.
If I could have a TRUE pots phone, I'd jump on it.
Instead all you can get it psuedo-POTS jammed over VoIP.
Real POTS in the old days was actually kinda magic. You never had the "everyone talking over everone else" thing you get with any VoIP solution because you don't have a syllable or two (more if using cell) of hidden latency.
Other than the audio rolling off everything above about 3.5khz, real POTS is as close as you can get to being in the same room.
Crappy line, often a fixed handset location (or near fixed) rather than direct to the individual.
Multiples calls were usually not handled, mum would use the phone when I wanted the internet…
It's one of the reasons I love the move The Vast of Night. The audio for the whole movie sounds like it was run through a perfect band pass filter.
This is the beautiful thing about phone numbers. The likes of iMessage will use iMessage if both users have it.
Imagine a world where one app could use sms, iMessage, WhatsApp, Snapchat etc. It’ll never happen, but I can dream.
I understand that this is supposed to feel like a clearly ridiculous example but my gut reaction is "well yeah, I hate the telephone and I'd be quite happy if I never have to give my phone number to anyone or answer a phone call again."
I think in the end we need a cross-platform messaging protocol that replaces SMS/MMS that is not reliant on a single app vendor, provides end-to-end encryption and will be supported by mobile network providers.
I can see why Google/Android's pushing for iMessage to be an open standard (they have a page dedicated to this that looks like it's written by a war propaganda writer: https://www.android.com/get-the-message/). It would be nice, but it's also good marketing for iPhones so I fail so see why Apple will play ball unless the likes of the EU implement legislation to make it happen.
Note: I'm not sure the assumption that only the US is dependent on SMS is accurate (I think that it's a standard that works globally and is currently relied on by majority of countries AFAIK).
But I do find the idea weird that they would jump through the hoops for it unless there is a major reason for it. Like we (US) had unlimited SMS a while ago that I think also helped.
However, being based on standards is more like being based on the lowest common denominator. Moxie describes the issue pretty good in his post where he explains why signal is not federated (any more):
https://signal.org/blog/the-ecosystem-is-moving/
When talking about things like encryption, RCS isn't that much better, it seems. Correct me if I'm wrong, but encryption is optional for the implementors. That doesn't seem to make it secure by default.
And it's also not Google trying to push to open standards. In the past, Google made multiple attempts to get their own iMessage and did not succeed:
https://www.androidauthority.com/rcs-google-3090142/
It feels like the campaign for RCS ist judt a PR campaign against apple.
Don't get me wrong, I think SMS is dated and I think it needs a replacement with something more modern and open that is not owned by a private company.
Although I do think Google Messages will prompt new users to enable RCS. iMessage also isn't enabled by default as far as I'm aware.
Except for ".. will be supported by mobile network providers.", doesn't Jabber/XMPP already fulfill all of that?
Also, I'm not sure what you mean by support by mobile network providers.
Yeah - they start with a false dichotomy.
The above "first" requires you and everyone you ever want to exchange messages with to sign up for a new app (the SAME app) to get it.
The only other means of communication that comes close is email with your own domain, which in theory offers the same benefit but in practice is a ton of work and will often result in your messages ending up in spam folders.
Unless you move out of their service area. Or a number of other caveats. Then they're not required to allow you to port your number, and telecoms rarely do anything user-friendly-but-internally-costly that they're not legally required to do.
They're not required to do it, and they rarely let you do anything that isn't legally required?
Something doesn't add up here, because telecoms letting you port your mobile number to another provider is the status quo. I can't remember the last I heard somebody complain that they weren't able to port their number when changing providers. I've done it four times myself, and each time it was painless.
Here is a summary of the rules [1] in the US. Key points from that page:
• If you're switching service providers and remaining in the same geographic area, you can keep your existing phone number. This process – often referred to as phone number porting – can be done between wireline, IP and wireless providers.
• If you are moving to a new geographic area, you may not be able to keep your current phone number when changing providers.
• Also, some rural wireline service providers may obtain waivers for the porting requirement from state authorities. Their customers may be unable to port their number to a new provider. If you are unable to port your number for that reason, contact your state public utilities commission for further information.
[1] https://www.fcc.gov/consumers/guides/porting-keeping-your-ph...
I'll give you one guess why I know this.
Yes, most cases port just fine. I've ported multiple times successfully too. But no, your number is not "yours". It's the telecom's, and they decide if you can keep it or not... and they have a history of choosing so poorly that they are now legally required to make a better choice most of the time. It really does not imply good things about trust in their future behavior.
Genuine Q: is this something that ever happens?
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9309038
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14415265
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24776748
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25475751
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25881112
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25884019
> Switching platforms is a pain, and getting your friends to do it is even harder. I think the advantages are worth the pain in this case, but the pain is real. So make it easier and start small: find one friend who’s willing to experiment. Sign up together for Signal or Telegram, and take it for a spin. And go from there.
This is THE problem. The pros, cons and analysis of every alternative messaging service is fine but the simple fact remains that the vast majority of people will not switch because they have no problem with their current setup. The article takes the benefits of privacy and security as a given (and for an HN audience I think it's appropriate to) but experience shows that most people don't care. Getting them to care is the key here.
Hopefully people become more sensitive to privacy issues and will realize how bad SMS is in this regard. RCS doesn't seem to have standard way to e2ee messages either so I don't see that helping either.
It's time to stop using https, instead let's use a new protocol owned by Facebook to visit web pages.
It's time to stop using IRC, instead let's use Slack.
It's time to stop using email, instead let's use a proprietary messaging app.
OR let's not commit everything to corporate-controlled protocols and platforms, and keep SMS, RSS, HTTPS, email, and so on. Please.
Going for worse tech solutions will just make the discussion for which app to download for your friend group slightly shorter.
RCS is a great standard to replace it but SMS is so ingrained that it wouldn't be gone even with RCS on every phone and every operator interconnected.
As opposed to Facebook seeing my messages and selling data? What am I not understanding here?
You can’t have privacy and still communicate through any form of instant messaging. Don’t tell me about some oss platform that no one uses.
I text because I don’t like social networking sites. If my message fails to send, I get an error. I don't get to send gifs, high quality photos, or see when people are typing back but that's a small price.
Moreover, despite all of the hate, iMessage actually works great. If the other person happens to have an iPhone (as most of my contacts do), they automatically get all these modern features, and if they don't, it seamlessly fails over to SMS and just works without anybody needing to think about it.
In many countries, EVERYONE has WhatsApp. In Israel it's how your boss, your work team, your kid's daycare, businesses and government offices communicate with you.
If an open protocol version of WhatsApp existed and was universally supported by the default messaging apps on iOS and Android, I'd be all over that.
It seems to me that the only reason SMS is still a thing is Apple pushing iMessage on everyone, and SMS is the only way anyone can talk to someone using iMessage without buying into Apple's silly closed ecosystem.
I have Signal, Telegram, WhatsApp, and even Messages with RCS etc on my phone, and the only people I ever talk to over SMS are iPhone users. Even worse, Apple does everything they can to make communications between iPhone and Android users look like shit to drive in some sense of superiority and pressure iPhone users to stay on the platform.
That hasn't been my experience. Often it does. And then sometimes it doesn't. My sense is that when it doesn't, it's because of the interdependence on SMS.
They are now mostly just used by companies to send short notifications (like if you drop your car off at a repair place they'll send you a SMS when its ready to pick up). It's good enough for quick one offs like that and not much else.
Most people use whatsapp and some signal or telegram.
The US seems to be pretty backwards on technology. Chip based payment cards have been universal here since the 90s (maybe even before) while the US was still on magstripe for decades.
I'm in France too, and only use SMS with friends and family. My mom asks me from time to time to install Whatsapp, but that's it.
I'm sure they exist, but until WhatsApp can communicate with WeChat etc, texting is unlikely to go away. This is one of the few areas where government mandated bridges may be required to allow for interoperability.
Sounds a lot like email with push-mail functionalities.
The exact spec doesn’t matter, what matters is that chat apps all work off some single interoperable spec
Edit: this is in Denmark.
Here in the US my doctor's office sends me an automated reminder SMS before appointments, and the functionality is limited to replying yes or no to confirm. For the use case it has, it works fine.
WhatsApp is the most common worldwide, but not the most common in every country. That could be Facebook Messenger, Telegram, or even something like LINE. (Yes, Messenger and WhatsApp are nearly the same thing these days.) If you have friends from different places you end up with most of the messaging apps installed on your phone.
Haven't used SMS in 10 years. I had to send a SMS to opt out of one of my carrier's options and I had to do the whole setup for Adnroid's Messages app because I have never opened it.
Lots of people have in their mind something akin to a medical professional who can see their most intimate details and expect them to treat them with respect. They assume anyone with access to this will act professionally because they assume that is their job, and so the answer to that question is often "Yes".
It is clear to me personally that is not reality, but I'm not sure how to influence peoples perspective here.
Further, if SMS is completely turned down (and not replaced) so that there is no text messaging service for non-smartphone devices then I'd rather be without messaging capabilities than have to get a smartphone.
I've heard this sentiment before but it seems nothing short of insane to me. What's the foundation for this?
It's not just PR, it's an important signal.
>The narrative: Apple uses the green bubbles as a PR tactic to make Android users seem inferior.
>I can’t say Apple doesn’t enjoy that dynamic. But by now, you know there’s a lot more to the green vs. blue bubbles than perception. The difference in color represents a very real difference in functionality, technology, and privacy
Like you (and the author) said it's the Blue "E2E-secure full-featured iMessage" versus the Green less-featured, less-reliable SMS, and the ONLY way into the "important signal" of Blue is for your conversational partner to buy a (more expensive) iPhone. It's wrong and reductive to pretend that it's "just" a PR tactic, but in the same vein we don't have to pretend that security and user experience is the only benefit Apple gets from this.
These days both iOS and Android feel pretty whatever but back in the day the iPhone had a level of cultural cache Android didn't. Instagram was iPhone only and there was a huge uproar when it became available on Android because it was losing its cool.
- https://uxdesign.cc/how-apple-makes-you-think-green-bubbles-...
Personally, I hate iMessage because, while I have an iPhone, everything else is Linux. But that's not really an argument I can make to literally every single person I ever interact with. :/
It pained me not to be able to recommend iMessage but because it's not supported on Android, Windows, or Linux, you fall back to SMS (for Android) or nothing at all (for Linux/Windows) and then it's far worse than Telegram.
For the average person the thoughtless forwarder or copyer of messages is a much bigger threat than any shadowy entity so I find these recommendations of trading convenience for 'security' very wrong.
>"Your chats are there to read, maybe even by accident, like a postcard passing through a post office."
in my opinion this is actually the only sane default assumption for any casual direct message or email format and the way security is framed is priming people for the wrong threat. The Verizon SMS guy is literally less likely to screw you over than whoever you're texting. Modern day's Stranger Danger.
1) Search. This is the big one. The fact that I don't even need to differentiate between email and chat when I need to search for something is highly valuable. Plus, its search functionality is just in general very solid. Go figure.
2) Integration into GMail. During the workday, it's more convenient for me to text from my laptop than from my phone. During the evenings, it's often the reverse. The fact that I can easily have a conversation going in my browser, then easily transition the conversation to my phone, is quite useful.
That said, I would love to be convinced that some of the alternatives mentioned in the article can either match or make up for these key features.
If you're using it and liking it, I personally wouldn't recommend switching. I didn't recommend it because at this point I don't trust Google to continue investing in it given multiple incarnations of Hangouts, prior Chat products, Allo, etc.
Google was perfectly poised to be at least the second biggest player in the messaging space, and they squandered their lead over and over.
I refuse to trust Google to sustain a product that isn't their core focus again unless they make some major changes how they treat the product lifecycle.
>Search.
...broke when they switched, by the way, so now you need to manually search in a different place for any older message.
But mind you this is high school kids, I have no idea about adult adoption.
Just checked Wikipedia, seems that's right:
> The concept was further developed by Vodafone UK, who in Oct 1997 launched 'Pay as you Talk', packaging a GSM phone with a prepay tariff, and retailing it in new kinds of mass merchandiser retailers such as Woolworths and Argos and one year later into supermarkets such as Tesco (previously mobile phones had only been sold in specialist phone retailers). Customers could buy the product outright for £149 (reducing to £99 very shortly afterwards) which came with credit and then top up as they needed. Pay as you Talk went on to be the market leading prepay proposition in the UK for many years attracting millions of new mobile customers.
I was a holdout for another year or so, right up until I started trying to meet up with people in the centre of London at the busiest times of the weekend lol.
No app can compete with that.
However, I must say that in full coverage areas, Signal is my goto.
Having to install a new app is more of an inconvenience than all the drawbacks of SMS put together. (It's not just installing. You have to have an account, and track your credentials, and get new contact info, etc)
What if the choices include Matrix?
something like rcs, but without the drama
i know for sure that i can sms nearly anyone. can't say that about signal (which i have tried, and it is nice)
Just use sms.
iMessage would be great if Apple allowed cross platform clients. Until then as far as I’m concerned it doesn’t exist.
Sent from my iPhone.
A good email client and server, offering instantaneous message transfer and notification is infinitely more secure and functional than any "messaging" "app". A tech savvy person can easily run their own mail server, or migrate their history from one vendor to another. Try that with your signal history...
Of course, it's just not socially acceptable to admit the boomers were right on this one...
And simple-but-powerful applications like messaging should appeal to the lowest common denominator if they want to be effective and usable.
I would even bet that any email leaks that most users would be afraid of are going to be caused by, in this order:
A) The intended email recipient leaking it
B) The email recipient/sender storing a copy of the email at rest (likely unencrypted, even if it was sent encrypted in transit).
C) An official email archiving policy from either the recipient or the sender's organization
And only at at the very bottom of the list "one of the intermediate mail relays being compromised and leaking the email in transit".
As for envelopes and wax seals--it's an interesting question. It requires a lot less technical knowledge for someone to open that envelope than to spy on messaging traffic. On the other hand, a lot more people have access to the messaging traffic and can bring scripts to bear on it at scale.
Actually, I disagree here.
I get that the author doesn't want to use SMS. I mostly use signal, but I sometimes use SMS to communicate with people who prefer it. I won't use whatsapp or telegram, for no particular reason other than I don't have to. Some of my friends contact me via twitter messaging - that's even worse in my opinion.
Otherwise anyone I wanna chat with I have on Telegram. Heh
Already sounds suspicious.
> you’ll need to sign up for a new app to get it.
Sign up? Sounds like somebody is running a centralized server that's tracking me then.
> The second ... sometimes fails to deliver messages without telling you
It tells me when the message cannot be sent. I don't like it that some central authority knows what's the status of my correspondent.
> send tiny, blurry photos and videos;
It won't, since I won't send any of that stuff. In messaging, a word is worth a thousand images.
> only works on your phone (not your computer);
good, that means no centrally-managed identity.
> confuses all your friends
I have yet to meet a person who gets confused by receiving a text message.
> and might lose all your messages if you switch phones;
As opposed to _not_ losing them? Now _that_ would be terrible. Although I'm sure the government in my country keeps a copy anyway.
> limits the length of your messages;
Yeah, that's kind of annoying.
> makes some of your friends feel inferior to others
Because they, umm, got an SMS? I don't understand.
> and offers no privacy whatsoever.
Well, that's true, but also not much of an illusion of privacy either.
...
Anyway, I'll keep my text messaging, thank you very much.
Suppose you had two choices when chatting with your friends. The first will give you a great messaging experience, but you’ll need to sign up for a new app. The second requires no sign-up, but sometimes fails to deliver messages; sends tiny, blurry photos and videos; only works on your phone; confuses all your friends; and offers no privacy whatsoever.
That choice is real. And if you’re like most people in the US (and millions of others worldwide), you choose that second option every day by using SMS.
Where else do SMS remain common?
At least here in Europe they've been relegated to automatic communications, like receiving 2-factor codes. No one uses them for messaging. I think the app of choice is different per country, but I haven't met any non American that's still used to SMS.
If you're trying to say X% of people under the age of Y tend to use WhatsApp(iMessage/IG/SC/Telegram/Signal) for messaging, then what are X and Y? and in which European countries (it varies).
Because SMS has been basically free for 20 years in some market, it's not something people felt a need to migrate away from.
I doubt that:
https://www.reddit.com/r/AskEurope/comments/mni2bx/sms_vs_me...
If you know a European country where SMS are the norm, can you share which one? As I said, I don't know a single one, but they might exist.
Make that several new apps, all of which are completely separate from each other with no integration. That's why people choose option 2.
who exactly is confused by SMS?