- cross-posted to:
- technology@beehaw.org
- cross-posted to:
- technology@beehaw.org
We’ve created an updated version of Beeper Mini that fixes an issue that caused messages not to be sent or received. We even added in a few new feature improvements: chats now open at the last unread message, and we polished the video player a bit!
WhatsApp is universally available, not locked down by the dominating platform’s own proprietor.
True.
But the point is the lock-in is similar from a social perspective, just hardened even further by tying the messaging platform to specific hardware.
“Hey let’s use XYZ instead of iMessage” and “hey let’s use XYZ instead of WhatsApp” will be met with the same typical resistance to any sort of change. But in the case of iMessage, there’s added elitism and othering due to Apple’s using iMessage as a lock-in to their hardware.
I think the big difference in the US is that iMessage was leagues ahead of SMS well before there were any good, popular 3rd party mobile messaging apps. iPhones also dominated here, and still do, largely due to that early market dominance.
No but a large portion of the world uses WhatsApp. Personally, since it became a Meta application I want to move away from it. Doing so though is not easily done without mass adoption. You’re highly dependent on your other contacts.
I was hoping RCS will be the next best thing. But I won’t be holding my breath.