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Comment by bastard_op | Hacker News Reader

Because of course they did, they like that children make fun of their peers that have a green message vs. a blue, and that's exactly what they want. They're like "ew, are you poor and can't afford a $1200 iphone?"

It is now a petty, but prevalent status symbol of being better than others, namely perceived "poor" or otherwise lesser android users.

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Which is so stupid when so many people have iphones that are handmedowns and many Androids users are much more knowledgeable with regard to technology and have much more impressive devices.

>namely perceived ”poor”

This is particularly bonkers to me given how expensive Samsung flagships are, but I guess Android occupying the sub-$600 range really enforces in children (physical or mental) that Android = Poor

Android users have been banging this drum about the iPhone supremacists for an actual decade at this point and it so, so goddamn tiring.

I buy iPhones for a number of reasons:

- Ecosystem which has been explained at length so often you'd have to have your head under a rock to not know what it means

- Ease of transfer of data between phones/tablets and replacements, along with constant sync

- Excellent build quality

- The OS is consistently good (not perfect, but good) and devices in general have a long life from purchase to replacement. I just recently had to FINALLY replace my gen 4 Watch with an SE, that I originally purchased in 2018. That's FIVE YEARS of daily use.

"An Android" by contrast can be fucking anything from a $20 Aliexpress special farted out with spare parts from NIGYEHO Ltd. and an ancient version of the OS that barely runs on the hardware, to a mid-tier perfectly acceptable phone that will no doubt be nearly bricked in the event you try and update the OS, to a multi-thousand-dollar premiere Samsung powerhouse that would utterly spank most iPhones at most functions and will probably last you ten years if you take good care of it. And what irritates the shit out of me is Android users that treat the last one like you get it at the price of the first one, and then call Apple users elitist for buying a very similarly priced phone.

It is truly mind-bending to me how effective Google's marketing has been to paint themselves constantly as the scrappy underdog fighting the conformist and snobby Apple fanbase, which is not to say there aren't any pricks who swing their iPhone around like it makes them hot shit, there almost certainly are, but to say that's the norm is completely outside my and anyone I know's experience of the matter.

What makes your anecdote more valuable than GP's? You may not know anyone who does the "snobby conformist" act, but GP does. Why should I care that you haven't experienced it when someone who actually has experienced it tells me so?

Moreover, since you admit those people exist, why wouldn't you support interoperability between iMessage and other platforms? It would only benefit you as a user since it would allow you to message your friends that are on Androids, and wouldn't be to your detriment at all since you're not doing the "snobby" act yourself. Where is your defensiveness coming from? It sounds like you're on the same team as GP.

> What makes your anecdote more valuable than GP's? You may not know anyone who does the "snobby conformist" act, but GP does. Why should I care that you haven't experienced it when someone who actually has experienced it tells me so?

Arguably you should care about neither then.

> Moreover, since you admit those people exist, why wouldn't you support interoperability between iMessage and other platforms?

There is interoperability. SMS texting is built into the same app. No, you don't get reactions... because that's not supported on SMS. No, you don't get replies for the same reason. However everything that is possible in the SMS standard is implemented in Messages completely normally, the sole difference being the chat color, and personally I'm fine with that because it lets me know immediately that Messages only features are going to be a no-go for this particular conversation.

> Where is your defensiveness coming from?

Implicit in the notion that iPhones are merely fashion accessories is that those who buy them are foolish. You're free to say I'm getting defensive, I wouldn't say you're entirely wrong. But if you really want to talk anecdotes, I have pages upon pages I could write of various experiences of having my credentials as an network engineer questioned because I don't have an android device or that I prefer a Mac computer.

Okay? Again, you're agreeing on every point except an unrelated anecdote. I agree that getting jerked around for using Apple stuff is dumb too. Do you even take any issue with Beeper Mini or did I misread somewhere?

> - Excellent build quality

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IS0SItAzEXg

Keep drinking your kool-aid.

Yeah I'd be willing to bet open flame on pretty much any smartphone screen is going to cause damage. I get around that by not lighting my phone on fire.

Beautifully put.

Did you just unironically use a “would someone think of the children?” argument?

Of all the interesting points in this situation, this is not even close to being relevant

The whole green-bubble debate is essentially an appeal to emotion...

Brand new iPhones have been available for $430 on apple.com for many years now.

And most young minimum wage employees with very little money and no "status" also use iPhones.

It is not a signal of poor/status, it is a signal of weird/not weird, without commenting on the validity of that, of course.

For example, people do not opt out of dating Android users because they think Android users are poor, they opt out because they think Android users have a higher likelihood of being sufficiently "weird" such that they do not want to engage.

That’s also entirely USA centric and a byproduct of everyone sticking to SMS-phone number systems to chat. It drives me nuts.

WhatsApp. WeChat. Line. Kakao. Facebook Messenger. Most of the world has switched to these dedicated apps.

Only glimmer of hope is that gen-z/gen-alpha is really into Discord (at least all the ones I know). Might finally bring down the iMessage group chats.

Discord is actually an interesting analogy because they share apple’s overall philosophy here. Discord doesn’t absolutely firewall themselves with attestation/etc but they will absolutely ban you for using alternative clients like Discord Advanced if they notice you behaving differently from an official client on the API. Some of the things the discord advanced client can do like animated smilies or cross-server smilies are things that discord has locked away behind a paywall (with no real technical basis) and that’s in conflict with how a small minority of users want to interact with the platform.

Should discord be forced to interoperate? Bearing in mind that of course forcing them open will undercut their whole business model - but that whole model is built on gouging consumers for trivial technical features that cost nothing to implement or support.

Similarly, while there is choice in the market (just like apple and android), it still doesn’t change the network-effect problem. If my friends are on discord, and I’m left in some group sms side chat, that’s not really a substitute, right?

Now layer on 30 years of brand warrior sports-team mentality and abrasive interactions in both directions, and you’ve roughly got the iMessage problem. But of course everyone likes discord…

I mean why shouldn’t I get to use discord for free like everyone else? And I also should get the paywalled features since it’s an arbitrary and abusive paywall and the environment has been designed to tacitly funnel you into using them. Isn’t that like, super abusive?

But we like discord…

At least Discord is available on every platform I use regularly (MacOS, Windows, iOS, Android). That alone is a massive step up from iMessage lock-in for me.

And that's also why Beeper supports Discord in their primary product (see https://www.beeper.com/cloud#w-node-_2123a13e-0a0b-7de3-82e5... )

I don't think many people actually like discord, they just feel compelled to use it because their friends use it

Discord excels particularly in group communications involving more than a dozen people. Its ability to organize access levels through roles and topics is a standout feature, offering significant advantages over other platforms. However, these features may not be as crucial in casual conversations among friends.

This whole “controversy” is because of Americans collectively stamping their feet and throwing a tantrum refusing to install WhatsApp or Signal. It’s really quite incredible.

But I share your view about Discord, I think it’s one app positioned to be the “American WeChat” in a few years if they don’t screw it up.

No one has even asked me to install WhatsApp or Signal or anything. I'm not sure where the tantrum is happening. I mean, if someone wanted to send me a message, I'd ask them to do it with SMS first, since I already use that. But I've never seen any evidence of any tantrums.

> I think it’s one app positioned to be the “American WeChat” in a few years if they don’t screw it up.

Yeah, not going to happen. Discord is turning in to a dog and pony show.

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