I really hope the industry settles on Matrix as the standard chat protocol.
SMS and MMS suck. RCS sucks less, but it's still inherently tied to your SIM.
Matrix is what instant messaging should be. But I'd settle for XMPP...
this post was submitted on 11 Sep 2023
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If we settle for XMPP, then we'll be stuck with situations like: "Hey, I sent you XYZ, did you get it?" "Nah, my server doesn't implement that protocol" etc.
Matrix works so well, wish we could just settle on that and be done with it.
WhatsApp uses (a variation of) XMPP under the hood...
https://xmpp.org/uses/instant-messaging/#projects-using-xmpp-based-instant-messaging
I understood some of those words! Lol.
I think XMPP would be better.
This is the best summary I could come up with:
A WhatsApp for Android beta update (version 2.23.19.8) that came out today contains a new screen called Third-party chats, reports WABetaInfo.
But its title is a strong clue that this is likely the first step to opening Meta’s encrypted messages app to cross-platform compatibility.
The beta comes just days after the European Commission confirmed that WhatsApp owner Meta meets the definition of a “gatekeeper” under the EU’s Digital Markets Act (DMA), which requires communication software like WhatsApp to interoperate with third-party messaging apps by March 2024.
The DMA’s goal, per the European Commission’s FAQ about the law, is to keep gatekeepers “from imposing unfair conditions” and to “ensure the openness of important digital services.” Beyond dictating that messaging apps must interoperate, the DMA requires that gatekeepers, among other things, let users remove pre-installed apps or shop alternative app stores.
Both Meta and Microsoft are planning their own mobile app stores in response to the DMA.
The European Commission is investigating whether Apple’s iMessage and Microsoft’s Bing search engine, Edge browser, and advertising service meet the bar for the new regulation.
The original article contains 201 words, the summary contains 180 words. Saved 10%. I'm a bot and I'm open source!
The interesting bit here is if and how that'll allow non-whatsapp users to be added to whatsapp group chats. 1:1 communication already works outside of whatsapp (worst case via SMS), but they control those group chats.
Yeah, I'd expect them to stay as far away as possible from actually fulfilling the spirit of the law as any technicalities allow them to. As in, they'll definitely violate that law, but they won't violate it more than necessary to make it practically useless.
The interesting part will be adding WhatsApp users to actually trusted private messaging apps such as literally anything else.