WhatsApp is the only chat app I've encountered that refuses to work* if you don't give it access to your contacts. The last thing I want is to give it access to even more chats. Go eat a bag of dicks, Meta. More like "metastatic"
* you can respond to messages but are very limited in what you can initiate (as such they got you as part of someone else's contact list)
I think this might only be true on Android? Apple has a strict policy that the basic app functionality must work even without permissions. And testing right now, I can send messages to direct numbers without having given access to my contacts.
> WhatsApp is the only chat app I've encountered that refuses to work if you don't give it access to your contacts*
I've never given it access to my contacts. (iOS.) It's worked fine. I recently started giving it access to a limited set of my contacts, but that was for convenience.
If I stopped and looked at how many redundant apps I have right now that’d be wild. For messaging alone, I’m on iMessage, Messenger, Telegram, Signal, WhatsApp, Slack, Discord, IRC, many in-app DM secondary tier feature chats, and perhaps a few other esoteric ones. Can we go back to just IRC please, those were the days for me.
I miss the days when I could start Pidgin and it'd automatically log into every single service I use, and I could chat with anybody regardless of which service they were on. I didn't need half a dozen different apps running just to chat. It felt like a utopia compared to what we have today.
People tried to standardize on XMPP back in the day, but capitalism figured out that standardize didn't fit their profit motivation. These days XMPP is a bit of an dated XML-heavy protocol, but Matrix is a newer alternative, and it supports bridging.
This feels like a distraction from what is really needed: a return to open standards/protocols.
I love the idea of Matrix but the complexity of key management and federation for the average person is far too high. Signal is a perfect direct replacement for WhatsApp but it still requires a phone number.
RCS is good enough... as a fallback protocol. I don't want a dependency on a phone number or a single physical device.
Why is email so durable but federated messaging so fragile? If we can make PGP/GPG email more accessible I wonder if that could translate to instant messaging?
The only possible way to return to open standards and protocols would be to make a closed protocol illegal.
That was vaguely the state of things before the DMCA here in the US. Sega had no legal ability to stop other companies from selling cartridges that played on a genesis for example, and in one court case the Judge ruled that the company was legally right to breach Sega's trademark rights to achieve that interoperability. Sony, Nintendo, and others all lost similar suits about trying to restrict interoperability with their products and software.
In fact, Sega was going to lose that case so badly, and the precedent was so clearly beneficial to the consumer and market, that they chose to settle it to prevent the precedent from being established. That this is something you can choose to do well after it becomes obvious how the case should end is an atrocious feature of the US "justice" system. You shouldn't get to take a case all the way to a verdict, and then have an appeals court poke holes in your claims and then say "actually we don't want any of this on the record anymore"
The DMCA as written makes it very easy to prevent interoperability by law simply with a bit of code here or there to make token efforts to prevent access.
I like this, a long time ago there were quite a few multi-service messaging clients that tied into AIM, MSN, Yahoo etc it was very convenient.
The downside is only the "gatekeepers" have to provide this interoperability, when it would be far more useful if all the popular platforms were facilitating it.
I dislike fb a fair bit, but if whatsapp effectively replicated functionality of pidgin, I would seriously consider it despite its otherwise evil behavior. If they made it open source with permissible license, I might even forgive some of fb's past transgressions. They do have the resources to pull it off.
For the iOS world, ideally the Messages app would be mandated to become a generic interface receptive to protocol plug-ins to interoperate with all messaging networks; and it too itself would be replaceable in that role.
I'm not sure Apple can be a good steward of such an open, plug-in based solution - they would always put in some restrictions to make the process very complicated and not accessible to platforms and developers.
At the same time, making it possible to choose WhatsApp for the default messaging app has been a great relief for those not locked into Messages.
A complication is that iMessage supports a ton of collaboration features that don't (and largely can't) exist across other messaging apps. The messaging bits will have the same nerfed interface as SMS/RCS because of missing capabilities.
Despite having the appearance of a messaging app, iMessage operates as a backbone for a lot of OS capability that is surprisingly deep.
That seems like a good idea in the sense that it's better than separate apps for everything, but it's also probably the wrong level of abstraction. For example: what happens if you try to create a group chat containing an RCS user, a WhatsApp user, and a Telegram user? Ideally it would just work, but I don't see how that's possible without support for such a thing at a deeper level than just the UI layer.
And what about E2E encryption? How will that work for users? Or will WhatsApp go the iMessage way and signal that you're talking to a non user of the platform and that you should be careful what you say there?
> BirdyChat and Haiket are the first two messaging apps that will initially be interoperable with WhatsApp.
What the heck are BirdyChat and Haiket? Both of those don't seem to actually exist, they just have a waitlist on their homepage.
Literally the only post on BirdyChat's blog is how they're now WhatsApp-compatible, but their initial Google Play release happened 45 days ago (Oct 16th).
Haiket's website similarly contains only one press release, which is to say that they're accepting waitlists since Nov 11th, but they're somehow funded by the "former CEO of AT&T Communications and board member of Palo Alto Networks and Lockheed Martin".
Facebook will attempt malicious compliance. They will try every trick so that they follow the letter of the law, but still undermine the regulators goals. I think this is round 1: Facebook figured out a way that only two irrelevant apps are initially interoperable.
I was curious too, but I figured I was just an out of touch millennial who didn't know what all the kids were chatting on these days and didn't want to say anything...
What would be far more useful is easy export/import functionality not tied to iOS/Android backups. i lose some messages every time I switch phones; it's a mess
Android: You can get the message db with root. You can export individual chats in text version right from the interface. The message media is stored in the user folders.
I'm more worried this happens because meta wants to access other networks to train their algorithms for free - just like with fediverse integration on threads.
Of course, this is still only an unfounded guess but I can't believe they're doing this selflessly, out of the goodness of their hearts.
I see no reason why none of all those extremely talented developers that America desperately needs can't come up with a messaging service of their own.
What WhatsApp really needs to do is allow people to store their chats in the cloud. WhatsApp is the only communication tool that forces people to keep everything on their phones - or delete information. This causes WhatsApp to take up a large chunk of the available space on most phones.
I am still waiting for the day where gMessage (currently called "Messages, Hangouts, or who knows what) & iMessage will be interoperable. The RCS standard is already out there
I'm sick of having so many different messaging apps. Everyone is using a different one, so you have to download another app, signup for something, figure out how to configure it & etc etc.
We need a modern Trillian or Pidgin that just connects to and talks to everything. To be fair, Pidgin still has lots of plugins for many different chat protocols. I don't know how well maintained they are and if they work consistently.
anonymars|3 months ago
* you can respond to messages but are very limited in what you can initiate (as such they got you as part of someone else's contact list)
sethops1|3 months ago
JumpCrisscross|3 months ago
I've never given it access to my contacts. (iOS.) It's worked fine. I recently started giving it access to a limited set of my contacts, but that was for convenience.
sparkie|3 months ago
sureglymop|3 months ago
It seems to no longer even scan the contacts by itself, only when you hit "New Chat", press the triple dots and then "Refresh".
Still a pretty garbage app but at least in terms of this it seems to have actually improved.
gear54rus|3 months ago
I've never tested it without contacts permissions though.
ThePowerOfFuet|3 months ago
throwaway290|3 months ago
hmokiguess|3 months ago
Yokolos|3 months ago
jjav|3 months ago
theknarf|3 months ago
bfkwlfkjf|3 months ago
baiwl|3 months ago
zenoprax|3 months ago
I love the idea of Matrix but the complexity of key management and federation for the average person is far too high. Signal is a perfect direct replacement for WhatsApp but it still requires a phone number.
RCS is good enough... as a fallback protocol. I don't want a dependency on a phone number or a single physical device.
Why is email so durable but federated messaging so fragile? If we can make PGP/GPG email more accessible I wonder if that could translate to instant messaging?
niyumard|3 months ago
You might be amazed...
https://delta.chat
mrguyorama|3 months ago
That was vaguely the state of things before the DMCA here in the US. Sega had no legal ability to stop other companies from selling cartridges that played on a genesis for example, and in one court case the Judge ruled that the company was legally right to breach Sega's trademark rights to achieve that interoperability. Sony, Nintendo, and others all lost similar suits about trying to restrict interoperability with their products and software.
In fact, Sega was going to lose that case so badly, and the precedent was so clearly beneficial to the consumer and market, that they chose to settle it to prevent the precedent from being established. That this is something you can choose to do well after it becomes obvious how the case should end is an atrocious feature of the US "justice" system. You shouldn't get to take a case all the way to a verdict, and then have an appeals court poke holes in your claims and then say "actually we don't want any of this on the record anymore"
The DMCA as written makes it very easy to prevent interoperability by law simply with a bit of code here or there to make token efforts to prevent access.
benoau|3 months ago
The downside is only the "gatekeepers" have to provide this interoperability, when it would be far more useful if all the popular platforms were facilitating it.
sunaookami|3 months ago
progval|3 months ago
pogue|3 months ago
A4ET8a8uTh0_v2|3 months ago
Natfan|3 months ago
lupire|3 months ago
Hmm.
Remember when gTalk had XMPP and Facebook killed XMPP by refusing to support it and launching the chat silo wars?
qubex|3 months ago
isodev|3 months ago
At the same time, making it possible to choose WhatsApp for the default messaging app has been a great relief for those not locked into Messages.
jandrewrogers|3 months ago
Despite having the appearance of a messaging app, iMessage operates as a backbone for a lot of OS capability that is surprisingly deep.
Ajedi32|3 months ago
ExoticPearTree|3 months ago
input_sh|3 months ago
What the heck are BirdyChat and Haiket? Both of those don't seem to actually exist, they just have a waitlist on their homepage.
Literally the only post on BirdyChat's blog is how they're now WhatsApp-compatible, but their initial Google Play release happened 45 days ago (Oct 16th).
Haiket's website similarly contains only one press release, which is to say that they're accepting waitlists since Nov 11th, but they're somehow funded by the "former CEO of AT&T Communications and board member of Palo Alto Networks and Lockheed Martin".
bfkwlfkjf|3 months ago
pogue|3 months ago
urbandw311er|3 months ago
prmph|3 months ago
poisonborz|3 months ago
Still bad, sure, but there are worse offenders.
brettermeier|3 months ago
Really annoying! Respect my decision as a user to choose the language I want, not where my IP comes from...
fer|3 months ago
Shameless plug on the topic: https://www.fer.xyz/2021/04/i18n
rrr_oh_man|3 months ago
timpera|3 months ago
jkaplowitz|3 months ago
pndy|3 months ago
Of course, this is still only an unfounded guess but I can't believe they're doing this selflessly, out of the goodness of their hearts.
smt88|3 months ago
moralestapia|3 months ago
Vespasian|3 months ago
pedrozieg|3 months ago
Tryk|3 months ago
unknown|3 months ago
[deleted]
pmig|3 months ago
daft_pink|3 months ago
sva_|3 months ago
unknown|3 months ago
[deleted]
pogue|3 months ago
We need a modern Trillian or Pidgin that just connects to and talks to everything. To be fair, Pidgin still has lots of plugins for many different chat protocols. I don't know how well maintained they are and if they work consistently.
https://pidgin.im/plugins/?publisher=all&query=&type=Protoco...
alex_duf|3 months ago
lenerdenator|3 months ago
Your comms are only as secure as the node receiving them.
djl0|3 months ago
udev4096|3 months ago
[deleted]