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People on MSN could chat with people on GChat, but people on GChat couldn't chat with people on MSN.

Since a critical feature of a messaging app is "my friends are on it", that gave MSN/FB/AIM a huge advantage over GChat, and had they not turned off XMPP integration, they would have bled off users until it was only used by small pockets of people, all of whom were on GChat (eg. Googlers).

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> People on MSN could chat with people on GChat, but people on GChat couldn't chat with people on MSN.

How this had worked?

I mean, in XMPP both parties need a JID, so MSN users must have had theirs.

Had MSN had generated random non-discoverable JIDs for their users, blocked any incoming messages unless there were prior outgoing communications, made GChat interop opt-in or what?

I'm also confused by that statement, especially as I was using msn over xmpp up until that died two years ago or however much it was.

I think maybe the grandparent was saying that you couldn't add msn friends to your contact in gtalk, but you could add gtalk friends to your msn. Or maybe its something to do with emoticons?

How does removing support for XMPP alleviate the issue?

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