Comment by increscent | Hacker News Reader

Comment by increscent | Hacker News Reader

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I recently switched from Android to iOS just for iMessage. SMS is quite unreliable even in 2023. SMS messages don't have the same delivery guarantees as IP-based messaging services. And often I have internet access, but spotty cellular service. The thing that pushed me over the edge was that my carrier happened to block all my SMS for a day. I only found out about it later in the day, after I had missed many (unrecoverable) messages. To avoid this, I could either blindly trust some other carrier, or use IP-based messaging. In my area, all my friends use iMessage. Ideally, people would use Telegram, WhatsApp, or even Matrix, but they don't. It's not uncommon to leave someone out of a group chat just because they don't have iMessage--the alternative is a subpar MMS experience. At some point, I'll probably buy a cheap Mac Mini and run BlueBubbles, but for now it's nice to not have to worry about messaging reliability, and I get the added bonus of being able to Facetime my family members, who all use iOS.

I don't get why Americans cling so dearly to SMS.

As a European living in the US, it's been baffling to me. Everywhere else in the world people use WhatsApp, Telegram, Signal, etc. This iMessage green/blue bubble nonsense just isn't a thing outside the US.

Apple has 56% of the US market compared to just 36% in the EU, afaik the number gets even higher as you go younger so the clique-iness is a lot stronger.

I mean, isn't this just trading one bad monopoly for another? It's weird to me that everyone's like "oh, the backwards US where they gave in to the Apple monopoly. We enlightened rest of the world use Facebook's Whatsapp like real free people".

Yes, but at least you get the same experience on every device with the other monopolies.

WhatsApp doesn't pressure people to buy another phone. Also, encryption is important.

My understanding is that unlimited SMS text messages have basically been included free with cellphone plans in the US for a very long time while that's generally still not the case in Europe. So there hasn't been a need to find a cheaper way to send messages.

This thread basically sums it up:

* Apple is really popular in the US

* Apple users tend to rely heavily on Apple's default applications

* Apple's messaging app is the default, and works fine with other Apple devices, but sends shitty SMS or MMS to non-Apple devices

SMS would disappear tomorrow if Apple adopts RCS.

And if they allowed iMessage clients on other platforms, they could corner the entire messaging market.

FaceTime is the real lock-in service for me. I use it for all my video and most of my audio calls, it’s second to none in terms of reliability and quality. I wish that was accessible from my work laptop!

I don't understand, why don't you force them to use Whatsapp (or Signal, or whatever) to contact you? Get an app that rejects by default SMSes coming from certain numbers. They want to text you at all? They need to use Whatsapp, otherwise they can go fuck themselves. (It worked for me when a friend wanted to force me to contact him on Telegram rather than Whatsapp- I resisted for weeks but at the end I gave in).

Once you automatically reject SMSes from those contacts, such that you don’t even know they're trying to contact you, the ball is entirely in their park to take action.

I don't use SMS myself but in this case it sounds like I'd be better off just not being your friend.

Sounds like you'd prefer to keep inflicting to me and to yourself a degraded experience rather than making the tiny, one-time effort of installing a free app. Because that's the whole point of this issue: the fact that you can still get what you want (reaching me) is what prevents you from making the smallest effort to make both our lives better and easier. And I also don't expect my friends to behave like that.

Is this a legitimate question? No one is going to download an app and use it to message one guy.

No one? I did. Normal, if you really care about that guy. In any case, the app is free, what does it cost you? Plus, the more people do it, the easier is for everyone to move to an app that works for everyone.

Yes, it's a legitimate question. If you wanted to keep up with a friend from Japan, would you not install LINE to talk to them (or them installing Whatsapp or Discord, or whatever you are using)?

And it's not like there' some gigantic combinatorial explosion of apps you have to install. The vast majority of messaging around the world is about 5 apps. Facebook's Messager, Wechat, Instagram, Whatsapp, Discord. Between these, you'll reach the vast majority of the world's population somehow. And then you'll need one or two more locally-used ones like LINE or KakaoTalk depending who you're talking to.

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