Honestly - and EU-regulation that Apple faces over iMessage would just be collateral damage from EU targeting Whatsapp.
At scale yes, signal, telegram and whatsapp are perhaps more significant than the apple ecology and the ratio of android to apple outside the USA and canada probably shows why.
“Installs” are muddied by the fact that everyone with a Facebook account has a Messenger capability, and every Apple user has an iMessage app downloaded.
“Messages received” is distorted by group chat dynamics and commercial messages.
“Messages sent” is distorted by the unequal value of relationships.
For example, I generally communicate with FB marketplace sellers & acquaintances from high school on Messenger, but use WhatsApp for talking with overseas family members.
More generally, there are social dynamics which make messenger apps radically different from one another. Even when the feature sets of the applications are very similar.
But it gives normal users a choice if they want it. Maybe it would get some to think oh maybe I should try Signal. That's how some people found out about Firefox - unimaginable I know.
Most of my family, friends and colleagues are on iMessage. I often need to explain why facetime will not work.
Whatsapp is also common, but different as it does not as easily replace SMS.
Meanwhile, wait until Mr. Zuckerberg looks for new ideas to monetize their messaging ecosystem.
WhatsApp is the current leader because it's no-nonsense and works everywhere. The moment Facebook fucks that up even a little bit, people will have moved on to the next thing.
The last messages on a dying messenger are always instructions on how to move on to the next thing. In skype, my status and most recent messages are just informing people of my discord handle. I accept that I may not be the norm, because generally I don't reach out to people and don't initiate contact, meaning that the onus is on them to use the appropriate channel to reach me.
Maybe it's worse for people who voluntarily stay in contact with many others using different messengers, but I don't see the problem with just having multiple messaging apps, especially since modern phones just consolidate all messaging services's contacts into your contacts app (at least on Android). You don't even need to remember who is reachable where.
This is the problem I was expressing. If I want to contact Joe I have to use Signal, if I want to contact Sarah it is WhatsApp. Sam is SMS. Its hard to remember who is using which app.
> but I don't see the problem with just having multiple messaging apps, especially since modern phones just consolidate all messaging services's contacts into your contacts app (at least on Android). You don't even need to remember who is reachable where.
That is easy enough if you use the contacts app. I usually go straight to the app I want. Regardless, it doesn't solve the core problem because people use multiple apps. How am I supposed to remember which app they prefer? I could message them on their non-prefered app, but I don't like doing that if I can avoid it.
Thats the reason why until now they only added non intrusive monetizing ideas than company accounts and so on. And when you ask me, they found a way to make whatsapp better. I can now order sushi via whatsapp. Here in Germany I know no other messenger that makes this possile.
Facebook's business model is predicated on being able to sell access to me to third parties.
I can control the first one directly.
But messages falls back to sms and that I can notice.
Thats was the way to my blacklist. Droped Signal caused by unreliability.
Additionally, same as now iMessage, close out of other clients. Other asshole, same shit.
Wasn't that in 2014, so literally 9 years ago? Things are pretty different now.
There’s no other good group chat encrypted option for both iPhone and Android.
Not every app needs to be compatible with every other app, though. There is a user base cutoff (and even then there is some room for interpretation) of 45 million users (10% of the EU population)/10k business users.
Negotiations aren't done yet, but it seems iMessage isn't popular enough to meet this cutoff. Alternatives like WhatsApp definitely are, though; I'm pretty sure that's exactly why Facebook is working on cross-platform messaging for WhatsApp: https://www.theverge.com/2023/9/10/23866912/whatsapp-cross-p...
This law doesn't just effect chat app developers: it also applies to app stores and other methods of digital gatekeeping.
That being said, Apple argues the app store for its iPads aren't popular enough to cross the threshold (they split up the iOS app store and the iPadOS app store in their statistics), so the impact of these requirements will depend on what specific iDevice you use.
What for? Everybody in the EU already uses whatsapp. That shows how unnecessary these selection screens are.
Going further: if we download different messengers, it stands to reason we can download different browsers, therefore if safari is the most used it's because it's the one we choose.
Make X low enough, 250, and all of this would go away: no more corporatism, no more monopolies, no more special groups interests paying for government lobbying, no more abuse of power from a handful of companies...
Now I have a company that cannot compete at the scale some chinese company can. OK so we close the border to imports from companies that are larger than our rules. When has that ever worked out?
Also there are a lot of things people could say “You know what you’re describing is never going to happen.” That did happen.
I’m not suggesting this one is. I don’t think so either, but it isn’t a very productive attitude.
In fact, I didn't realize it's actually viable until now.
https://gs.statcounter.com/browser-market-share/desktop/worl...
Why does so many people have this attitude that Safari sucks and the only people who use it are idiots who don’t know better?
It’s so incredibly insulting.
Not that putting native Mac in quotes implies anything nice either.
It’s absolutely baffling that you could read my post as saying safari sucks or that people who use it are idiots.
Let me try to be more clear… there are two reasons someone uses Safari on macOS, in my experience:
1. They like it better. Usually, the reason they like it better is because it feels more “native Mac”. This term is in quotes because it’s not a technical term and my understanding of what it actually means is vague, but I by no means dispute that it’s real.
OR…
2. They don’t care, so they use the default.
The way this is written implies to me you think they should install something else, but obviously they just don’t care.
Whenever there are discussions about Safari on hacker news they tend to be a lot of people who seem to have the opinion it should die and that anyone with a brain uses chrome.
Between your word choice and that seemingly common sentiment here that’s what I thought you were saying. I’m sorry if I misunderstood.
I'm trying to understand the reason for the white knight HN commenters NPC reactions coming with their "stop insulting my favorite trillion dollar corporation".
There’s a very common sentiment on HN and other technical places that safari is a serious problem that needs to be removed from the web so that things can be “better”.
That’s why I’m insulted. Not because someone is insulting Apple, do that all you want if they deserve it. Because I’m tired of people implying that the browser I like is shit because it’s not chrome and its only used because people have no choice or can’t figure out how to switch.
People are entitles to their own opinion regarding products. If they think it's shit, it's their opinion same how you're entitled to your own different opinion, no need to be Apple's unpaid white knight and froth at the mouth at everyone calling their stuff shit.
When the EU forced that implementation, it was already behind the ball.
It all but ensured Chrome’s dominance by killing Firefox’s momentum and proved unsuccessful, which is why the browser selection screen got killed.
Not that we'd get it in the US but it would help reduce Apple/Google market capture efforts.