Before the there there the proprietary networks (Aol, CompuServe and others) along with BBS, IRC, Newsgroups, etc.
I literally don’t remember a time in my life where messaging hasn’t been fragmented.
Apps like Trillian, Pidgin (Gaim), Adium actually allowed chatting across many platforms on the client side. To some extent they still can, with add-ons.
Modern XMPP is really great, Conversations is a fantastic client, supports E2E encryption, is open source, and makes minimal use of resources.
Beeper Cloud and Element One do this through matrix bridges, but Beeper has been trying to move this entirely into the client again, which is what Beeper Mini is an experiment for.
If Beeper Mini succeeds, it'll soon also support Signal, WhatsApp, and Facebook Messenger. If Apple succeeds, messaging will remain fragmented.
Yes, and you could combine them all into a single multi-protocol messaging app like Adium, Trillian, Gaim, Pidgin, etc. to provide a single convenient unified experience.
I used it exclusively for years. It supported all those things (or I should say if someone had multiple ways to get to them, Adium supported at least one of them).
Back then a lot of services also used XMPP but that has been readily abandoned - Slack used to do XMPP, doesn't any more. Google used to do XMPP, doesn't any more...
I suppose one reason for it is E2E encryption.
There certainly was: https://www.macintoshrepository.org/989-msn-messenger-2-5-1
Or maybe referring to RL. You know, actually talking to someone on phone or in-person. Although then you have to deal with different accents, dialects, languages, and even regions specific lexicon.
But because Apple decided to make their messaging system a marketing tool instead of an interoperable app, we don't get to have a Trillian equivalent today.