The perils of federated protocols

Posted May 19, 2016 18:18 UTC (Thu) by Seegras (guest, #20463)
In reply to: The perils of federated protocols by petur
Parent article: The perils of federated protocols

> 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.