Jesus, you’re talking like 8 years ago - I remember when they charged for it too.
I’m not paying $10 a month to collate all my “free” chat services into one platform, maybe a one time free or something though. I have an M1 mac, so I already have desktop imessage
Back when you had to pay to get FaceTime on some older Macs. Scandalous.
I honestly wouldn’t mind a shift back to the days when we had to pay for this stuff, but given that they’re long gone and people are used to free now, I’m probably in the minority.
I feel the same way about bank accounts too though.
There are so many things that are worth paying for to get a better experience. But I always feel conscious that I’m in a privileged position where I’m actually able to afford a lot of crap.
This is one of the reasons I find it hard to get too mad about tracking. I’m not a fan of invading people’s privacy but the “free” tools and services available to people are frankly amazing and if we’re talking about the entire world then most people probably can’t afford to pay.
I hate tracking. I find it too intrusive. A good example of a free product that doesn’t rely on it is DuckDuckGo.
Android is already doing a pretty good job of trying to solve the multiple message issue with the way it handles message notifications and chat bubbles.
Oh how I miss Android notifications. iOS is a car crash.
Out of interest, how does DuckDuckGo make money/survive?
How does DuckDuckGo make money?
We make our money from private ads on our search engine. On other search engines, ads are based on profiles compiled about you using your personal information like search, browsing, and purchase history. Since we don’t collect that information, search ads on DuckDuckGo are based on the search results page you are viewing, not on you as a person. For example, if you search for cars, we’ll show you ads about cars.
That seems reasonable.
If only peoply actually wanted to use Telegram!
From what I have read you can only do chat by chat and manually set too equivalent groups in advance. Great to be able to do but seems high admin for the average user ( I would do the admin my end though…)
Not really Telegram related but I used WhatsApp today to speak to HP as a customer service channel for my Instant Ink subscription.
It was bloody great and I wish everyone did this. Super reliable, push notifications when they reply, no timing out or having to keep track of a window in the background.
Not sure if any other messaginng platform would be a viable replacement in terms of user numbers.
Had the same thoughts when I’ve used Apple business chat through iMessage for a couple of places also.
Think it makes a lot of sense - established messaging apps that work well over some shitty B2B thing bolted on at low cost.
How do you access a firms’ Whatsapp account?
I’ve used WhatsApp to contact Tesco and Casio customer support before and it’s always been super convenient. I doubt they’d be interested in using Telegram as an alternative method of contact due to the lack of E2EE, but maybe this is a space Signal should be exploring.
Supporting Signal seems pointless when it’s going to be a tiny fraction of any company’s customers.
I can only speak for myself but my Signal use has dropped to zero after a few weeks of messing around. It’s a shame because it’s a nice app and it’s developing quickly. Definitely nicer than WhatsApp and iMessage.
I love using Signal and have managed to get a few friends over.
But like anything, it’s just so hard to get people to switch. I hate having to use FB Messenger and WhatsApp.
Myself and my other most ‘techy’ friend moved over around the whole WhatsApp announcement time to try it out. We’ve stuck with it pretty rigidly.
And of last night my friends on signal have doubled(!) as another friend messaged me to say she was switching over 
I’m kind of imagining a very slow increase until I’m messaging a sizeable portion of my friends on it.
