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Comment by spike021 | Hacker News Reader

That sounds like a people problem, not a tech problem.

People rightly criticise social media companies for the behaviour their platforms encourage, and iMessage encourages this behaviour as much as twitter encourages outrage.

I still believe that's a people problem.

On Twitter you can easily curate Twitter lists of people to follow without being forced to use the generated feed. I'm rarely if ever outraged or otherwise emotionally charged when I'm using it. (Maybe except when I come across reply-bots)

And as I said elsewhere in the thread, I've never experienced that problem with any friend groups when it comes to iMessage.

It sort of becomes a people problem as people use messaging to communicate and organize events and exclude you because you'll break group chats.

Probably not a big issue if you already have a solid social circle of old tight friends who don't care about you breaking chats as they can also call you, but it can be huge issue when you move to a new city and trying to make new friend, as any extra friction you add to groups lessens your chances of being accepted and invited further.

Yeah, people can be quite lazy and petty even about such trivial things, when they don't know you and don't have any attachment to you yet, and you breaking group chats won't improve your first impressions and chances of being accepted. Hence the ever increasing loneliness crisis we're facing.

Thank fuck I live in Europe where nobody uses iMessage for group chats. Honestly fuck Apple for creating that unnecessary friction, it's not like they couldn't have accommodated blue bubbles to not break group chats but it's more profitable to emotionally extort people to buy your iJunk by making them feel outsiders.

> it can be huge issue when you move to a new city and trying to make new friend

Meh. I'm not interested in being part of a social circle that is as petty as that.

There's 40 million American teenagers who are very interested in being a part of petty social circles.

Pretty much. Peer pressure is an insanely powerful thing when you're young and trying to fit in and Apple knows teens aren't gonna die on the "stick to an Android to stick it to them" hill.

I was assuming this discussion was about adults, not children. Teenagers have always found petty reasons to reject others, but they usually grow up and learn better. This seems no different, so that part doesn't concern me much. If adults are doing it, though, that's entirely different.

Is the argument you're making that the people complaining about this on HN are American teenagers?

Seems like a completely different situation.... and really, again, a people problem.

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