[55555]

Please for the love of god make it a legal requirement that messaging must be made available as a separate app without addictive feeds. Or make it such that users can disable the feed in settings. 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.

[Aurornis]

> 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.

[em-bee]

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.

[komali2]

> 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.

[swiftcoder]

> 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.

[inetknght]

> 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.

[array_key_first]

> 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.

[ajsnigrutin]

Why not just use SMS messages? No feeds, literally all phones support them, with MMS you also get photos and stuff... you don't need another party involved for the messages to work, and you're already paying for them.

[seanhunter]

This is something I genuinely don't understand. Whatsapp used to have a reason to exist because the SMS experience on android was pretty bad. That's not the case any more.

[array_key_first]

1. You do need a third party.

2. SMS is probably the most insecure protocol created for anything, ever.

3. The experience is as close to as shit as it can get.

4. Most modern messaging features aren't supported.

5. Most devices don't support SMS.

6. You can't sync SMS across devices.

[pimlottc]

Completely. I'm not normally on Instagram but I recently made meet some new friends that use it for messaging. The number of times I've open the app to message someone and gotten distracted by the feed...

[ecb_penguin]

> Please for the love of god make it a legal requirement that messaging must be made available as a separate app

Please for the love of god do not make legal requirements about how to build an app and what features can be included.

> 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.

lol, you have no legal right to how a chat dialog must be presented.

Why don't you try innovating instead of suing?

[alkonaut]

That would be the sensible idea in a free market. But that ship sailed LONG ago. Now there are apps and "markets" that are so important and dominating (Amazon, Facebook, ...) that the only alternatives are basically to split them, control them or regulate them in detail. The problem isn't lack of "innovation".

Anyone can make any social app work the way they want to. But that doesn't mean the same rules and laws applies - or should apply - to one with 1B users as one with 100 users.

[umanwizard]

Messenger is already a separate app.

[moolcool]

Instagram Messenger is not

[bitpush]

I don't know why you want a government agency to dictate product strategy.

[array_key_first]

Because most products are not only shit, they're designed in such a way to be as shit as possible. Because that legitimately works.

Even if the government agency makes the worse decision possible, which they probably will, that's still an improvement, because we're completely maxed out on shit levels. That's how bad many products are today.

[psychoslave]

From a government point of view, it makes sense to jump in when the product is a psy-ops at societal level, doesn’t it?

[komali2]

Because things in the State should help people, not exploit them. If the thing, in this case, a corporation, is harming people, why not force it to stop?

[balder1991]

I suppose that’s because people already lost faith in the current system and where things are going as it is.

[ecb_penguin]

It's the European way