what can facetime do that telegram or other messaging apps that support video chat can't? as far as i can tell they are now equivalent. we are not talking about irc or email here. true alternatives to facetime do exist.
To use WhatsApp/Duo/etc, all it takes is a phone number and maybe an email address (or a Google account you already have), and a few minutes of time.
If someone's girlfriend is like "I would rather just use FaceTime and call you 'by phone number', instead of spending that few minutes to set up an account for an app we can both use", I would agree with the person above -- this is too toxic.
> If someone's girlfriend is like "I would rather just use FaceTime and call you 'by phone number', instead of spending that few minutes to set up an account for an app we can both use", I would agree with the person above -- this is too toxic.
On principle, I agree the hurdle is not high to get another app/account. I even stand with you to not give in and succumb to this behavior.
The social aspect is harder. It may be easy to convince 1 person (the girlfriend) to do this, but what about her attached network of friends and all the group chats that come with? Will it be easy to convert all her friend groups and setup all the group chats to replace the existing ones?
I'm not sure anyone has that strong of a network effect unless they're at the top of the heap. In which case the girlfriend would have probably just downloaded the app and setup the account.
Even if they convinced the girlfriend and not her network of friends to get the app and new account, it would essentially still exclude and make them a "second class citizen" in that group. All it would take is not opening the app or seeing the notification or acting upon it to be relegated.
I think those not as tech friendly would want multiple 1 to 1 chat apps where there was one or very few people were on the other side. Just easier to convert people to the majority.
this is also an issue of social justice and exclusion of lower income families. anyone who is arguing that not getting an iphone means depriving their children from getting friends is missing the point. if that is what is happening in a community then that community is seriously broken, and we need to address this problem. excluding others because they don't have the necessary tech gadget is something that should not be allowed to happen.
if my kids do this to others then i failed as a parent.
This is kind of like saying, “Yes my house is on fire now, but rather than put it out right now, we should research and develop fireproof houses.” Cool idea but your house still burns down. You can work on the bigger societal problem but if you can, address the immediate issue, which is you kid getting bullied. And yes it sucks if you can’t afford it, but if you can, buying the iPhone is a simple way to resolve the issue your kid is facing (albeit not the underlying problem).
so then what is your suggestion to put out the fire?
to stay with the comparison: there is no water.
if your idea of putting out the fire is getting iphones, then that simply is not an option. and then you are getting back to bullying. giving in to bullys is not an acceptable solution. the iphone will not solve the problem here at all.
bullying needs to be addressed differently. but that is not even something i am worried about. simply the inability to participate is already a problem. and it's going to remain a problem for those that can't get those tech gadgets. so what do you propose that we do about this? run a fundraiser and donate iphones to poor kids? legislate that kids have a right to communicate and are thus entitled to get an iphone? force apple to lower their prices?
here is one that might actually work: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=34993823 require apple to make imessage interoperable, or at least force them to support imessage to run on android. it would not make the FOSS advocate in me happy, but that at least would be putting out the fire.
Of course it is! It’s called picking your battles and sometimes you give in and sometimes you don’t. Everybody loses sometimes.
This is the literal definition of picking your battles.
Never "picked my fights" at any time in my life... make me feel treated unfair (or observe someone treated unfair) and i go full psycho mode. Yeah, i got stomped in the ground many times in my life (lost a few teeth, got broken bones, where fired or thrown out of places) but i am just too stubborn and stupid to give in.
Congrats.
Plenty he didn’t get for philosophical.
i simply can not accept defeat on this issue
For me doing something nice isn’t defeat, and his desire for an iPhone wasn’t an issue.
We were fortunate to be able to get him an iPhone. And fortunate he wanted an iPhone and not his own bong.
It might have worked out the same if we hadn’t. By working out I mean FaceTimeing with him now that he’s a grown ass man.
I'm not saying its a good thing. I despise that its practically impossible to have a social life without an iphone in a lot of urban american schools. Just know that by not budging and not getting your kid an iphone, you are causing them frustration and potentialy making them lose out on a significant part of their childhood.
the trouble is of course, today there are no home phones anymore. the last one i saw a few years ago in china. but even when our internet service came with a phone we didn't bother connecting it. sooner or later home phones will be extinct.
there are laptops and internet but then it depends which messaging services work with out a phone. telegram, signal, whatsapp, wechat all require a phone.
i suppose a shared family mobile might work for calls, but not for messaging where surely everyone should have their own account.