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Comment by Aurornis | Hacker News Reader

> We need to be able to message our friends without seeing a feed without having to convert all of our friends to a new platform.

Those people are in the app because of the social features and the feed in the first place. The messaging features were built on top of the platform.

Requiring companies to make and maintain a separate app entirely if their product has messaging features is an unreasonable requirement. If someone has such a strong self-control problem that they can’t message someone without becoming addicted to the feed, they shouldn’t be involved with the platform at all.

Just exchange emails, phone numbers for SMS, or any other type of communication. I seriously doubt that your friends are only able to communicate through exactly one communication channel and it happens to be Instagram.

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Requiring companies to make and maintain a separate app entirely if their product has messaging features is an unreasonable requirement

the better alternative is to require interoperability with other messenger apps, so can use the app of my choice. this is a proposal under discussion since years ago.

I seriously doubt that your friends are only able to communicate through exactly one communication channel

some people do exactly that. they refuse to communicate on anything but their messenger of choice. and sometimes keeping in touch with that person is more important than my preferences. oh, and for many people i do not want to share my phone number, which limits the available messaging platforms we can still use. we'll be lucky if there is one.

> some people do exactly that. they refuse to communicate on anything but their messenger of choice. and sometimes keeping in touch with that person is more important than my preferences. oh, and for many people i do not want to share my phone number, which limits the available messaging platforms we can still use. we'll be lucky if there is one.

I’m sure there are some number of people out there who only use Facebook Messenger, do not check their email, refuse to use any other messenger, for whom you do not want to share your phone number with for SMS texting, and for whom one of their friends cannot self-control enough to scroll a Facebook feed when they use the Facebook Messenger app. I agree this scenario is plausible for some very small percentage of users with eccentric habits and specific demands who are unwilling to compromise.

I do not agree that we need to start using the force of government to regulate that companies cater to this exact edge case situation where both parties refuse to bend their messaging habits or exchange SMS contact information but want companies to create an entirely separate app for them to communicate on their platform.

interoperability is about more than just solving some edge cases:

https://umatechnology.org/eu-could-force-whatsapp-messenger-...

“I’m sure there are some number of people out there who only use Facebook Messenger, do not check their email, refuse to use any other messenger”

I don’t know how old you are or where you live, but I’m in my mid 40s and don’t live in a tech city. A good quarter of everyone I know in my age range uses Facebook Messenger as their primary form of texting. Most of them don’t even use Facebook itself anymore, they just have a lot of momentum on Messenger.

Yeah, this mirrors my experience. I've managed to convince a bunch of tech friends to migrate to Signal, but the vast majority of my non-tech friends/family in the US are exclusively available on Messenger

> Requiring companies to make and maintain a separate app entirely if their product has messaging features is an unreasonable requirement.

I disagree. I think it's more than reasonable. Facebook designs its features with dark UX to cause addiction, it's not about self control, it's about Facebook engaging in anti-human behavior.

It's reasonable to use the State to force a corporation that makes tens of billions of dollars of profit a year to behave in a way that's beneficial to people. The corporation will be fine, it's air conditioned and listening to its favorite music.

> Requiring companies to make and maintain a separate app entirely if their product has messaging features is an unreasonable requirement.

In this case Meta already has such an app (Messenger), and it has at times supported instagram messaging. I'm not sure why they broke that association a little while ago, but it's not unreasonable that they could reconnect it.

> Those people are in the app because of the social features and the feed in the first place.

Well, I suppose that's one take on it.

I would argue that people are in the app because Facebook gave out Facebook Messenger. Then Facebook changed how Facebook Messenger works. You could call it a rugpull, I would call it US business practices.

> Well, I suppose that's one take on it.

It's the correct take. Facebook had 800M users on the day Messenger was released.

> I would argue that people are in the app because Facebook gave out Facebook Messenger

Why would you argue a nonsense point? Literally all you have to do is Google "when was messenger released" and "number of facebook users in August 2011"

Unless you think those 800M users were just waiting for a shitty messenger?

This judgement is about Instagram, specifically. Messenger pre-dates Instagram (and very significantly pre-dates the Facebook acquisition of Instagram).

> I would argue that people are in the app because Facebook gave out Facebook Messenger.

Messenger was never the primary draw of Facebook. It came long after Facebook was popular.

I should have known better than to step into a conversation about Facebook on HN. Doing anything other than blindly agreeing with anti-Facebook comments, even if they’re factually incorrect or illogical, attracts downvotes and more illogical arguments.

> Messenger was never the primary draw of Facebook.

I didn't say it was. Remember, my statement was: ... that people are in the app because Facebook gave out Facebook Messenger

Indeed, I remember using Facebook just for messages. So when Facebook Messenger came out, I used that exclusively.

Now, I've long since moved off of Facebook and Facebook Messenger. Some of my family still use it though, and I've seen it. It's not what it used to be. So, I then expanded on that to say: Then Facebook changed how Facebook Messenger works

> they’re factually incorrect or illogical

So, where's the factually incorrect or illogical argument?

The final straw for me to move off of Facebook was Cambridge Analytica. Once I realized how terrible not just Facebook was for not only permitting that kind of shit, but practically inviting it as a feature... that was very telling. And I've since stopped using nearly all social media, present website excluded.

This idea that if you change your app in a way that some people don’t like, then the government legislate your features for you, is just mind boggling to me.

I think this really only becomes an issue if the changes you made to your app is in some way affecting democratic elections in that country (and in that case, seems well within the purview of legislation)

> Requiring companies to make and maintain a separate app entirely if their product has messaging features is an unreasonable requirement.

I don't think it's unreasonable and I'll take it further - messaging should be forced to use an open protocol. No more iMessage or Facebook messenger. If you want those, great, then open them.

Now everything works with everything and the world is a utopia and also we cured cancer. Downside: Meta will make slightly less money. I can live with that.

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