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Threads and the Fediverse | Kev Quirk (kevquirk.com)
submitted 2 years ago by to c/fediverse@lemmy.ml
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Here's a very different take on Threads by a Fosstodon admin.

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[–] 1 point 2 years ago* (last edited 2 years ago) (6 children)

You seem to be too young to have been around at the time, or you didn't pay attention back then.

Google was a small upstart at the time, riding to success on the back of open protocols like XMPP (outside of their core search engine business) that had all the support from tech enthusiasts back then*

Google's XMPP server was simply the easiest one to switch to from ICQ/AIM/MSN which loads of people did back then.

Only when Google had pretty much absorbed all potential users did they decide to not really care about open protocols after all and stopped developing the s2s federation support.

*Edit: this conversation played out many times back then: "did you hear of this cool new messenger called Jabber?” - " No, but cool, where can I sign up for it? ICQ sucks" - "hmm, do you know Gmail?" - "yes, I just signed up there because the awesome free 1GB email space” - " ok, cool! Then you already have a Jabber account, let's use that one :)"

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  • [–] 1 point 2 years ago (5 children)

    You yourself said that the vast majority of users did not care about what protocol they used. They cared about using the chat app with the most user friendly interface, which was Google Talk.

    XMPP is an implementation protocol, not a user facing feature.

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  • [–] 1 point 2 years ago (4 children)

    And your point being exactly?

    We are discussing if Google first benefitted from and then damaged the open XMPP federation, not some protocol implementation details.

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  • [–] 1 point 2 years ago (3 children)

    That Google Talk would have taken all those users and become the dominant chat platform over XMPP based ones, regardless of whether or not they used XMPP to start with. Google Talk was always going to outcompete Jabber / AOL / MSN messenger because those platforms stopped investing in user facing features.

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  • [–] 1 point 2 years ago (2 children)

    Google's XMPP server was Jabber. That's the main reason it got traction in the first place.

    You are arguing retroactively. Back then was a vastly different situation, and you really seem to be too young to understand that. Large platforms like today simply did not exist yet.

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  • [–] 0 points 2 years ago* (last edited 2 years ago) (1 child)

    You are arguing retroactively. Back then was a vastly different situation, and you really seem to be too young to understand that.

    Stop being a gatekeeping asshat, you have no idea how old I was, and it's patronizing and dumb as shit to claim that someone is young just cause they experienced a time period differently from you. Your memory and perception is not an infallible perfect record of major corporate and consumer trends.

    You are arguing retroactively.

    YES. Because we are not talking about what is going to happen with Lemmy. We're talking about what DID happen with XMPP and Google Talk. We have the benefit of hindsight, and seeing that Jabber did not matter one iota compared to Gmail. If it did, you would be able to ask any person old enough to remember Jabber what they thought of it. You know what you'll get? Blank stares.

    Gmail and Google Talk had millions of users, XMPP only had millions of users when Google Talk decided to keep it alive by supporting it.

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  • [–] 1 point 2 years ago* (last edited 2 years ago)

    Both were small upstarts at the time, with Jabber (via the Pidgin client) having significantly more pull in the influential tech demographic than Gmail as just another email service had at the time. Google Talk didn't even exist then.

    People remember Gmail because it won. Memory is funny like that, as you say yourself 😏

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