this post was submitted on 08 Nov 2023
427 points (97.8% liked)

Technology

59596 readers
4131 users here now

This is a most excellent place for technology news and articles.


Our Rules


  1. Follow the lemmy.world rules.
  2. Only tech related content.
  3. Be excellent to each another!
  4. Mod approved content bots can post up to 10 articles per day.
  5. Threads asking for personal tech support may be deleted.
  6. Politics threads may be removed.
  7. No memes allowed as posts, OK to post as comments.
  8. Only approved bots from the list below, to ask if your bot can be added please contact us.
  9. Check for duplicates before posting, duplicates may be removed

Approved Bots


founded 1 year ago
MODERATORS
 

The long fight to make Apple's iMessage compatible with all devices has raged with little to show for it. But Google (de facto leader of the charge) and other mobile operators are now leveraging the European Union's Digital Market Act (DMA), according to the Financial Times. The law, which goes into effect in 2024, requires that "gatekeepers" not favor their own systems or limit third parties from interoperating within them. Gatekeepers are any company that meets specific financial and usage qualifications, including Google's parent company Alphabet, Apple, Samsung and others.

you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
[–] BearOfaTime@lemm.ee 12 points 1 year ago

Let's be clear - only a subset of Americans care about the bubbles. And it's annoying to the rest of us too.

The iMessage approach is the obvious solution, Google had a competitor over 10 years ago and killed it. Signal took the same approach and killed SMS just this year.

It's frustrating, because US has the particular problem of SMS being ubiquitous because it became zero-additional-cost for most people by about 2005. The same mindset that keeps people on SMS also creates the blue-bubble nonsense: ease of use and not having to think about it. Signal was making inroads on this, makes me wonder why they stopped supporting SMS.

I have friends who say "I don't want to have to think about where to message someone". Oh, ffs, do you struggle with calling their home/work/cell, or choosing to email or send a letter?

So yea, it's not America vs the rest of the world, it's us vs the complacent/unaware.