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Re:Apple cuts off Beeper Mini's access by chmod775 on Friday December 08, 2023 @06:31PM (#38576278)
There's no monopoly. Messengers hardly have any lock-in and there's plenty of competition available. Entire continents will switch messengers essentially overnight once the current market leader becomes too enshittified and there's something better. Remember how AOL, ICQ, MSN, Skype, etc. died?

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.

Re:Apple cuts off Beeper Mini's access by ImJamal on Friday December 08, 2023 @08:46PM (#38577497)
There is major lock-in. If I want to move Signal but everybody I message uses WhatsApp then I can't message them unless they switch.
Re:Apple cuts off Beeper Mini's access by chmod775 on Friday December 08, 2023 @08:55PM (#38577567)
I can use multiple messengers in parallel without issue, as I did each time in those transitional periods.

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.

Re:Apple cuts off Beeper Mini's access by ImJamal on Friday December 08, 2023 @09:16PM (#38577747)
>Maybe it's worse for people who voluntarily stay in contact with many others using different messengers

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.