[mattl]

Quitter is someone else's interface to GNU social. You'd have to ask them about it.

I'm not sure if the founders of email would care for names like Thunderbird and Icedove, but you'd have to ask them.

[dilap]

i love the openness of a protocol approach (like email), but i just don't see how it's going to have a chance if it falls down this badly as a product-as-a-whole.

what lessons can we learn from slack vs irc? from whatsapp vs email? from usenet vs reddit? etc.

[mattl]

I've not really used Slack, sorry.

WhatsApp is SMS, isn't it?

But GNU social isn't a product. If you want to take it, add your own interface, marketing, etc... I think you'd have a product.