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Yep, WhatsApp for normal people in Europe; Telegram or Signal for those suspicious of Facebook.

I kind of miss XMPP, which seemed like the answer at one point. As it is, I need about six messaging apps (WhatsApp, Facebook Messenger, Signal, Telegram, a Matrix client, Slack, and I'm probably forgetting one) plus SMS/iMessage to keep in touch with everyone.

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Despite what HN seems to think, XMPP is still alive and evolving.

https://snikket.org/ is worth checking out as a (self-)hosted personal chat system.

So true, XMPP is fantastic. I also use it for SMS and signal (I wrote some simple bridges for Prosody). We use it for work too. It's great to have it on all my devices. Group chats (MUC) also work well. The modularity is where it really shines. Conversations on Android keeps a long running TCP session open, it works better than push based solutions and is just as light on battery somehow.

I mean, it still exists, but approximately no-one uses it. There was a time when you could talk to people on Google and Facebook's chat systems with it.

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