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Comment by stock_toaster | Hacker News Reader

As a user, I am upset that it is getting harder to communicate with people. Everyone has their own non-interoperable (but cross platform!) protocols/networks/gardens now.

  * blackberry bbm
  * apple imessage
  * google hangouts
  * skype
  * whatsapp, etc.

As a user, am I supposed to have an account with one of each of these things? Have nine different apps open all the time? This is as bad as icq/messenger/aim/etc was back in the day. sheesh.

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It's very simple: no XMPP? Then I'm not IM'ing with you. No SMTP? Then I'm not emailing with you. I might be the exception, but I don't care. I encourage others to do the same, and don't support in any way, shape, or form companies that keep doing these things. Someone comes to you with a problem caused by this BS (or just a problem with, say, the offender's platform in general), refuse to support them. Tell them to talk to their vendor.

I wish it were that easy. The problem with that is it at the end of the day, you're the only one at a disadvantage. The vendor doesn't need you and doesn't care. If your casual contacts and non-technical friends find communicating with you to be uncomfortable, they'll just move on without you.

And that sucks, and I don't like it, but I'm still not giving in. To be honest, I have a hard enough time keeping up with people I know IRL (which thankfully doesn't have these problems), and I can't see any of them cutting me off because I won't "upgrade" (they haven't yet).

This is a very good point. I think a lot of people tend to greatly overestimate the degree to which technology has the keys to their social life.

I'd love to live in this world with you. Literally, I think one friend I know, even of techie friends of friends that work in tech (msft, etc), would know what I meant if I said that without having to think for [too long].

It's why I'm so upset that a large network that had the potential to include a huge amount of people and volume AND LEVERAGE XMPP just spat in our faces.

I agree. I have only XMPP contacts for IM, and simply don't use any others.

Slight nitpick, Apple's iMessage (edit:) and BlackBerry's BBM) aren't _really_ cross platform (unless you consider OS X to iOS cross platform). It isn't really useful beyond Apple's walled garden.

Is BlackBerry's BBM available to other platforms?

Not yet, but it is slated to come to Android and iOS in the near term.

http://mashable.com/2013/05/14/bbm-ios-android/

Until then your nitpick should also include that as another walled garden ...

If you don't support Desktop you are not cross platform

iMessage is transparent, so that doesn't bother me. I have three [edit: four] solutions: GTalk, Email, Text, and Facebook. Except GTalk, they're all passive (i.e. I get messages from them on my phone without the app being open). Now that hangouts are available, it's 100% passive. This doesn't seem like that bad of an outcome to me.

That's 4. The old "off by one" error.

Well, I am a software engineer, so it's traditional. :P

This is why I am long on SMS.

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