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Comment by DataDive | Hacker News Reader

Zawinski's Law:

> Every program attempts to expand until it can read mail. Those programs which cannot so expand are replaced by ones which can.

I think nowadays we can substitute email with chat/DM.

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It's important though because it allows you to communicate things that don't really belong in the open while remaining under your identity on that platform and avoiding the need to link that identity with your identity on a different service.

Exactly. I often wish GitHub had a messaging capability, for these same reasons.

GitHub used to have DMs, they removed them, presumably due to spam and harassment.

The thing is that a closed system like DMs on a platform can be more effectively monitored for spam than something like email (or phone calls or texts) because everything is under single control.

It would be useful if I could send people Signal link where they could login with their Facebook/Google/Instagram account (OIDC) to chat with me over Signal. Signal no longer requires phone numbers as identifiers, so this might be feasible.

Nowadays it's chat, photos/videos, and online purchases thus forming an all-in-one app. Not quite popular here in the West, though that's Elon's eventual goal with X. But think WeChat in China.

whatsapp as well

There is the western superapp, it's called Google Search.

The original law fails for too many programs to be useful in its own, but why do you need some law to replace the obvious expectation that a social media program is going to do messages?

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