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Comment by tapoxi | Hacker News Reader

Probably because their main competitor, iMessage, is E2E. If they can be E2E and cross-device, they can take share from Apple.

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BTW, iMessage is not their main competitor (or even comparable to a non-text message cross-platform messaging app). IMO that was messaging from Facebook to avoid antitrust issues. Their main competitors are telegram, wechat, kakao.

In the U.S., the competition is Discord; overseas, WeChat, QQ, Snapchat and Telegram [1]. iMessage is a tool for the rich or young [2].

[1] https://spectrm.io/insights/blog/messaging-app-statistics-mo...

[2] https://www.androidauthority.com/imessage-big-deal-guide-308...

I agree with baby here, iMessage ate their lunch long ago,their competition is Kakao, Line, and the likes, not even Wechat, as they have 0 presence in China, and they are far behind features wise.

You make it sound like iMessage won... is that true?! Most of the people I know use some combination of (Facebook) Messenger, whatever you want to call the thing in Instagram (which is now compatible with Messenger), WhatsApp (or some Signal), and even Twitter DMs (which surprises me to no end)... there are only a few people I ever talk to with iMessage anymore. Some people use Telegram (but those people are more techie; the "normal" people I know are on the Meta apps... maybe they are also on TikTok but I'm too old to talk to them ;P). Meanwhile, iMessage seems to be frantically trying to throw in features from Messenger and WhatsApp in order to remain competitive (and then doesn't even do them as well).

Depends on your age and demographics. Young people in the US are probably the biggest market. Everyone else uses Facebook (old US), we chat, Whats app (most of the world?), telegram in Russia, and so on. Actual text messages tends to be a US thing largely, and the the young folks are terrified they will be seen than less than if they don't get the proper color on Imessage with their friends... Yes, that is a thing. My teenage sons will do anything to have an IPhone.

Depends on your age and demographics. Young people in the US are probably the biggest market. Everyone else uses Facebook (old US), we chat, Whats app (most of the woqrld?), tooqok elegram in Russia, and so on. Actual text messages tends to be a US thing largely, and the the young folks are terrifies they will be seen than less than if they don't get the proper color on Imessa881756ge with their friends... Yes, that is a thing. My teenage sons will do anything to have an IPhone.

Nah, at least for me , all my friends(mostly faang SDEs) use iMessage, even the ones working at Google's Android team. The people who own Android devices, I know that in other countries outside the US, Android phone are way more popular(accessible), but I was referring in the US. Regarding features, the integration of iMessage with iOS is superior, I don't get what features of WhatsApp you are talking about, I don't think people who use iMessage would want to broadcasts stuff in channels, etc...

I never said iMessage ate their lunch o_O I know one person in my life that uses iMessage because for some reason they don't want to use whatsapp.

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