[angrybits]

> when the last user of it finally gives up and moves to gmail so they can continue to communicate with their contacts or maybe they give up entirely

Between the title and the quoted, I think you have used up your hyperbole quota for one day.

I guess I don't see the issue. The internet is a large piece of infrastructure on which citizens and companies can publish (almost) anything they want. Lamenting that for-profit ventures have tried to wall off their parts is curious, as I am not sure how that impacts me or my decisions. I don't facebook, I don't tweet, and I could not care less that these things exist. (Not entirely true, but my objections to them would be off-topic.) The world is a very large place, and there will always be people who hang out in the more distant corners of the net, you can go be with like-minded people and talk about the good ole days of (insert bygone era here).

Now if you are lamenting this because you want a piece of the action and the big kids are being bullies, then I suppose my answer isn't going to comfort you any. But for just simple usage, I think this is a tempest in a teapot.

[wishinghand]

The issue is anyone with a web browser (even ones provided by the ones with walled gardens) can use the HTTP protocol to see hypertext documents. But Facebook users aren't using a public protocol in the Facebook messenger, so they can't easily communicate with Twitter users, who also don't use a public protocol.

It's not the end of the world, but allowing more people to connect more easily is a good thing. The larger issue is that people are less likely to connect once they find their comfortable niche. You don't use Facebook or Twitter but someone who does and would be interested in your thoughts are less likely to stumble across you.

[gonehome]

I think there are practical concerns too that push away from openness and towards silos - it isn't just about money.

Open protocols can be slow to improve because of the very nature of their openness - they have dependencies and need to remain interoperable.

Closed protocols can adapt faster because one entity controls the entire thing. In the case of chat XMPP was in the lead for a while, but the mobile situation was terrible - connections were constantly dropped and even though there were clients that supported multiple accounts (Meebo) it was a pretty bad software experience. The current messaging products are not open, but they are better.

This is a shame I think - because it'd be a lot better if the open products were actually better, not just better because they are open.

Maybe the trick is to hack on a better open protocol, but even then it could similarly be outpaced. Maybe the path to this is defining an open 'social' protocol and fixing the internet identity issue at the same time. Maybe keybase.io can do this?

[e12e]

You don't care that gmail seem to randomly mark some not-from-gmail mail as spam? Which leverage Google/Gmail's marketshare to push people away from all other email services?