Pidgin is exactly what we need.. and each messenger needs to be a pluggable module. Then we dont need to hound friends and family to switch messenger apps they just use pidgin.
But why would something like Facebook open up their walled garden? Does it even count as a walled garden when you have 2 billion people on the platform?
Obviously yes.
Does any wall count if there are more entities on one side of it than the other?