The perils of federated protocols

Posted May 19, 2016 7:45 UTC (Thu) by petur (guest, #73362)
Parent article: The perils of federated protocols

I hate it when services don't federate, the fragmentation is horrible.
And mistakes from the past don't mean you can't come up with a protocol that also describes how to handle the future.

The only thing it brings, is user/customer lockin.

What progress has WhatsApp brought? It pinned your account to your phone so that, unlike other chat protocols, I can officially only chat on my phone and not on my tablet.
Ditto for Signal: I can only use it on my phone. How dare you call that progress? I'd say exactly THAT is back to the 90's

Lack of federation just demonstrates the inability to create or use a protocol that can work with the future and the past.

The perils of federated protocols

Posted May 19, 2016 9:56 UTC (Thu) by federico3 (guest, #101963) [Link]

> The only thing it brings, is user/customer lockin.

I'm glad finally somebody said it.

> Lack of federation just demonstrates the inability to create or use a protocol that can work with the future and the past.

"unwillingness" more than "inability", I'd say.

The perils of federated protocols

Posted May 19, 2016 16:36 UTC (Thu) by smurf (subscriber, #17840) [Link] (1 responses)

> The only thing it brings, is user/customer lockin.

You can move WhatsApp from one phone to another. No problem. Just root the thing and backup+restore the data with TitaniumBackup.

My belly-ache with the whole fragmented-messager fiasco is twofold. I can't know beforehand which messager a peer might be using: I need to feed my phone numbers to all of them. Plus, *something* must eat all the RAM and CPU on my phone … why not install 20 additional messengers, learn the idiosyncracies of their UI, deal with crashes, deal with broken sync …

The second problem is most of these messengers don't interoperate and don't have any sort of API. I want my computer to text me? Right: install another specialized messenger. I want to create a chat group between >2 people? Right: tell all of them to install a common chat tool.

The perils of federated protocols

Posted May 20, 2016 18:34 UTC (Fri) by eternaleye (guest, #67051) [Link]

You misunderstood GP's comment on lock-in, then proceeded to describe exactly lock-in.

Lock-in isn't "can't switch devices" unless the provider locking you in is the device provider.

It's "can't switch away from the provider's product" - which results in the 20 additional messengers, the lack of interoperation, etc.

The perils of federated protocols

Posted May 19, 2016 18:18 UTC (Thu) by Seegras (guest, #20463) [Link] (2 responses)

> The only thing it brings, is user/customer lockin.

Yeah, either we've got a completely fragmented market, where every 2 weeks a new state-of-the-art messenger pops up. Like now. WhatsApp, Signal, I don't even know the IM of this week.

Or one of these manages to take off. And then we've got a lock-in. After that, it will get stale and hinder any newer development.

The perils of federated protocols

Posted May 20, 2016 2:12 UTC (Fri) by krakensden (subscriber, #72039) [Link] (1 responses)

I don't even know anyone using anything other than SMS and Facebook. Whatsapp, Wechat, Groupme, all seem fairly dead in my circle. Hangouts killed google chat. AIM & MSN have been dead for years.

The perils of federated protocols

Posted May 20, 2016 18:32 UTC (Fri) by yroyon (guest, #99220) [Link]

Wechat is insanely popular amongst Chinese users, including in the US. LINE is popular with mobile gamers, to coordinate guilds and such. (Oh, and of course players based in China can't use LINE, it's blocked by the Great Firewall. Wechat is not.)

Slack at work, Couple with the spouse, etc, etc. So many. Each has a niche.