There is a significant difference between developing and promoting a protocol (such as XMPP) and a product (such as Signal). Both approaches have their advantages and disadvantages. This post details how and why Snikket aims to strike a balance between the two.
but that services shifted away from it because they didn’t want to have the kind of open ecosystem.
Well, of course some part of that is true, but the “death” of XMPP wasn’t walled gardens, it was text messaging.
I studied, graduated and worked literally all the 2000s at a German university in the middle of nowhere. Which was for some weird reason at the technological vanguard. We had Facebook before Facebook existed. Everyone who lived on campus had 100 Mbps Ethernet and was 24/7 online, at a time when Germany extremely slowly picked up DSL and maybe used email.
Rarely anyone except the nerdiest of nerds used jabber (or IRC), but what really everyone had constantly running was ICQ. That “oh-oh” sound still haunts me.
Most of the people already had mobile phones of course, but texting was still prohibitively expensive, especially considering that you had a free always online service at home.
But over time “flat rates” for text messages became cheaper and cheaper, and here’s the thing: ICQ/XMPP/etc never really worked on mobile phones, and at that time most of the people didn’t use “smartphones” anyway.
So more and more people just flat out stopped using instant messaging in favor of texting. Much to the chagrin of the people who couldn’t afford a flat rate… I vividly remember heated arguments from people who were suddenly cut off from their social life. It really had a measurable effect on social circles on campus.
And there wasn’t a big migration of people from ICQ to Google who then got locked in. I don’t remember anyone using Google Talk at all. ICQ and instant messaging just died – surprisingly quickly I might add. Or rather, it went into hiatus until iMessages and Whatsapp appeared.
Well, of course some part of that is true, but the “death” of XMPP wasn’t walled gardens, it was text messaging.
I studied, graduated and worked literally all the 2000s at a German university in the middle of nowhere. Which was for some weird reason at the technological vanguard. We had Facebook before Facebook existed. Everyone who lived on campus had 100 Mbps Ethernet and was 24/7 online, at a time when Germany extremely slowly picked up DSL and maybe used email.
Rarely anyone except the nerdiest of nerds used jabber (or IRC), but what really everyone had constantly running was ICQ. That “oh-oh” sound still haunts me.
Most of the people already had mobile phones of course, but texting was still prohibitively expensive, especially considering that you had a free always online service at home.
But over time “flat rates” for text messages became cheaper and cheaper, and here’s the thing: ICQ/XMPP/etc never really worked on mobile phones, and at that time most of the people didn’t use “smartphones” anyway.
So more and more people just flat out stopped using instant messaging in favor of texting. Much to the chagrin of the people who couldn’t afford a flat rate… I vividly remember heated arguments from people who were suddenly cut off from their social life. It really had a measurable effect on social circles on campus.
And there wasn’t a big migration of people from ICQ to Google who then got locked in. I don’t remember anyone using Google Talk at all. ICQ and instant messaging just died – surprisingly quickly I might add. Or rather, it went into hiatus until iMessages and Whatsapp appeared.