This is the brilliance of iMessage where it gets critical mass- fallback to SMS but pushing the iMessage identity tied to an account that follows you to new phones/devices.

I think that iMessage network effect is a big reason for the steady market share growth of iPhone in the US- none of the competitive apps have cross-generational appeal, just iMessage.

I agree with you, but a hardware specific messaging app is just stupid.

As you can tell by the length of my last post, thinking about this situation has got me upset.

So upset, that right now I've decided to launch a non-profit, open collective organization called OOMA. Only One Messaging App.

OOMA will be comprised of the millions of people who are annoyed and upset at the result of tech companies competing for our communication. We are taking things into our own hands. We are agreeing to switch to ONE service, for ALL of our messaging needs. All of us, all over the world, all at once.

We are going to do 5 things, in order: 1. Choose a switch date. 2. Define a spec for the "perfect messaging app" (encryption, licensing, finance model, features, tech, etc.) 3. Invite companies to pitch their app, and/or secure funding to develop our own to spec. 4. Spread the word. 5. Make the switch.

I'm going to prepare a marketing web page and (ironically) a discord server right now. At the very worst it's a fun side project and way to express my anger.

EDIT: OOMA server is live. If you think an app is not the solution, come tell us why: https://discord.gg/CmdgUp

> a hardware specific messaging app is just stupid.

What's the old phrase? If it looks stupid but it works, its not stupid. Say hello to the world's most valuable public company and what is commonly regarded as the world's highest quality messaging network.

A truth technologists hate hearing: You cannot, under any circumstances, solve problems created by code by creating more code.

XKCD has a comic for just this situation: https://xkcd.com/927/

Hahaha I had that in my copy clipboard while typing the post :)

For real though, has any sort of movement or organization tried to alleviate these problems without financial motivation?

I encourage you to read about matrix [https://matrix.org] - the protocol. In addition, there are numerous open source clients to use [https://matrix.org/docs/projects/clients-matrix]. Also, as far as organizations, matrix.org has recently become a foundation moving towards somewhat you described [https://matrix.org/blog/2018/10/29/introducing-the-matrix-or...].

I would say that would not be done by "an app", nor "a service with an API exposed", but by "a protocol" that other/most/all apps follow. Jabber/XMPP comes to mind, so does Matrix.

Ooooh - the worlds biggest bikeshed ;)

Right, building another messaging app is not the right approach. But choosing one of the many existing solutions, and somehow convincing all of my social circle to move to it-- that's the problem I want to solve! Has anyone done it before?

Wouldn't a federated solution be better though? After all email and SMS are decentralized, albeit somewhat archaic.

If email and SMS was invented today, they wouldn't be open and decentralized. Everything is locked and centralized nowadays, since everything is tied to accounts at companies wanting to make money of of you. It's the current state of the Internet, a world wide open network with siloed incompatible services.

I'm actually contemplating ICQ, it's still around and looks no worse than any other service. Matrix might be a better solution though, it's federated and open. https://matrix.org/blog/home/

Yep. 20 years ago, if you developed something cool, you open sourced it. Now, you turn it into a SAAS startup and monetize it to make your millions.

Nostalgia isn't what it used to be.

ICQ, AIM, MSN Messenger, PawWaw, Yahoo Messenger, Odigo, (and 30 more names I can't remeber) - there was a huge instant messaging war, the first stage of which was decidedly won by AOL (with AIM and the purchase of ICQ), but Microsoft later made great headway through sheer monopoly force and persistence - but that eventually became irrelevant with SMS taking over as the main form of instant messaging and then WhatsApp taking the world by storm.

None of this was open source. Not a single one of the successful messengers. In fact, AOL fought alternative clients fiercely all the time, and Microsoft started fighting them as soon as they got non-trivial market share.

What about XMPP (Which started life as Jabber before being standardized?)? Well, that one is open source. But it only survived and flourished because all the commercial outfits were busy fighting each other.

I was tangentially involved with the failed instant messaging standardization process at the turn of the millennium, and Jabber was by far the worst technical proposal at the time -- but the process was political, and when the committee disbanded due to all the political infighting, Jabber, which didn't have the commercial interests, was the remaining option.

sorenjan referenced matrix...and honestly, that's the way to go.

Until you find the ultimate solution (good luck), here's my practical solution:

1) Port your US number to Google Voice for a one time fee of $25 ; from now on, you can use this number to forward to your new verizon number (also: T-Mobile had much better plans for only a few months at a time, every single time I checked).

2) Get service in Europe from an Illiad affiliated phone company; At least in the past, that included free US numbers you could forward your US google voice to freely -- as well as 15-45 days of free US roaming service. Maybe these offers are gone now - you could just pay $1/month or so to LocalPhone or a similar company to do that forwarding for you.

3) Buy the cheapest Android handset running a recent version (for security updates); I got a new Meizu m6 for ~$90, you could probably go lower for 1st hand or get a 2nd hand at $40 or so.

4) When travelling, switch SIMs between main phone and cheap phone, set up forwarding (directly if included in plan, or through LocalPhone or similar if not), and keep cheap phone on WiFi only, plugged in charging at home, and mostly accessible for when needed.

5) Use WhatsApp web on the new phone to continue using old WhatsApp number. Less than ideal - messages don't pop up - but it works well.

For about $100 one time[0], and about $1/month or so, you could to keep both numbers fully functional and working indefinitely.

[0] Ok, so you'll have to upgrade the cheap phone for security reasons every few years. So not exactly one time, but possible $20/year amortized, or free if you don't trade-in your old main phone and just let it rot like many people do.

What’s wrong with iOS Messages? I can text literally everyone I know. I don’t even know what it does under the hood.

It's hardware specific! Most of the planet is on Android. If there is a way to do iMessage on Android, I can at least say that not many people know how.

I think that's where Google Messages is headed unless they somehow decide to put it on other app stores.

Okay, your experience is ... not representative. In this world there are tons of people using iphones, tons of other people using android. You see both frequently. There happen to be way more people using android but it doesn't matter, because there are sizable numbers using both, we should only consider solutions that work on both.

I agree, it’s not representative at all. But my point is that android users have problems because of the device they buy. There are likely trade offs. But google doesn’t want to solve this problem on a way that customers want.

It’s like buying a diesel vehicle and then complaining that the hybrid systems suck for them. Don’t buy a diesel if you want hybrid engines. Or work with the manufacturer to change their incentive model.

But google is an ad company and is unlikely to make products where it is hard to sell ads.

I don't get your response. You have an app that only works on Apples, so you are basically suggesting that they should abandon android. But other people probably have an app that they require that is not on iphones. There are many different chat apps with billions of users that didn't come from Google and work on androids. Google is not stealing your text messages, if that's what you are thinking somehow.

And if your "Only One Messaging App" is a monoculture proprietary product with dubious profit goals than you can count me, and large swaths of tech minded people, out.

The only way forward is either Matrix or something like it. And even then you need enough momentum to bend all the walled gardens of Google / MS / FB / etc to have to play ball with a common federated protocol. Good luck getting that without the ludicrous budgets the market leaders have to throw at trying to force everyone into their own proprietary chat bubble.

We almost had that in the mid 2000s and the Google jumped ship first to Hangouts. They basically started this whole mess by going from a time where MSN Messenger, Facebook Messenger, and Google Talk were all speaking the same XMPP language. Since then all three have gone total proprietary with design decisions around locking people in than providing a useful product.

Some things are fine to have proprietary giants trying to fight for your eyeballs over, such as entertainment. But communication should be something we can agree on, as a society. This is the kind of thing we should have international interoperable standards on. Email was a lucky break that SMTP and IMAP ended up being mandatory, because even today Google is trying their damn hardest to implement Gmail in anything other but an interoperable way but know it would destroy their product to ever turn the compatibility off.

I agree. But I can think of two alternatives that you don't mention:

1. A centralized and proprietary system, but with a transparent and non-profit governance structure. I understand the costs and technical challenges of global communication are bigger than say, wikipedia... but is it impossible?

2. The power of collective action. Communications apps don't put users first because we have no bargaining power. What would they do for us if we threatened to leave, en-mass (or vice versa, if enough people offered to collectively adopt their solution?).

And honestly, the problem might be better approached as a personal, social one: I don't care what the world uses, how do I get my social and professional circle to adopt one single solution?

This is more what I have in mind with "Only One Messaging App". We've grown 800% in the last quarter, so keep an eye out for us :P

I worked around the problem you describe by getting a google voice number and using that at the front end for my real numbers. My GV# is the face for whatsapp, telegram, whatever asks for my number. Also helps that I can send and receive sms over data or WiFi anywhere in the world.

Doesn’t work with some sms gateways that don’t y’all GV, but the best international I know.

Each country gets a new sim with a local number for data and local texts but I never give it out.

I tried this a few years ago, it only worked for American customers. But it did save me some money making calls. Last I checked they basically abandoned their mobile app for a near decade...

The mobile app is poor, but can send texts and push text alerts to me.

I think GV is limited to US numbers and you have to have a US number to sign up.

It places a burden on my contacts who want to send an sms because they have to use international rates. But it’s better than not being able to text me.

The GV app is usable again recently - it was never really abandoned, just not given any major attention for a while. It did lose the "call back" option, which is a bummer.

However, installing the Hangouts client will let you use it as a better GV app for every day use (messages/voice, for settings and stuff you still need the GV app or the GV website).

At least until Hangout dies ...

They revived the app sometime last year and it's back in a usable state now.