[dispose13432]

>And the reason people initially used Facebook, Skype, and WhatsApp is not that they were easier to use or better. It's advertising. Notice how all of these are proprietary software made by companies with the means to advertise their software? You can bet people would use GnuPG, Diaspora, and XMPP if they had been advertised by companies like Facebook and Microsoft.

I know quite a few non-techies who use VLC, Firefox, LibreOffice, and other OS advertising-less projects. The difference is:

1. Facebook, Skype and WhatsApp solved problems others didn't and became big. Now it's too late to fight.

Had Diaspora been around before FB, and as easy to work with (put name here, picture here, password here, friend here. You're all set up. Let's go), or XMPP been around before Skype (which is a very old program in internet time), or Kontalk,Signal, etc. been around before WhatsApp (find friends by number, not by username), they probably would have taken off (at least to some degree).

Google came late onto the Desktop scene (Chromebooks) and are not successful while the incumbent (MS) is good.

MS came late onto the mobile scene and failed, while the incumbent (Google) is good.

[adventured]

> Had Diaspora been around before FB

I'd be willing to guarantee that with a name like Diaspora, it could have never achieved mass adoption under any circumstances. Most people won't know what that word means. The name sounds terrible and unfriendly, more like a disease than a social network your mother would want to join. Diaspora is another example of engineers not understanding how to make a product, top to bottom, for the general public.

[kbart]

I tend to agree. Naming is important and if you target masses (non-engineers, non-geeks etc.), you should name your product so that even a 5 years old kid would understand it without a second thought and memorize instantly. An anecdote, but I have harder times convincing people to use LibreOffice than OpenOffice for no reason other than a name.

[daenney]

> or XMPP been around before Skype

It was. XMPP, aka Jabber, started late 1998, the first version of jabberd appeared in 1999, the standards group started in 2002 and the RFCs were ratified in 2004. Jabber.org, the first IM service on top op Jabber/XMPP opened its doors in 1999.

Skype was first released in 2003, about 4 years after Jabber had already become a thing.

Just because something was there first doesn't make it win nor does it mean it will remain the primary/principle protocol/option :).

[Decade]

>> or XMPP been around before Skype

> It was. XMPP, aka Jabber, started late 1998… Skype was first released in 2003…

But XMPP didn’t have VoIP until 2005.[0] More importantly, XMPP and SIP don’t have a great story for NAT traversal and privacy. And corporations are shying away from open standards, e.g. Google Hangouts federation, or when Apple FaceTime was supposed to be an open standard.[1]

A very long time ago, before even Jabber was around, I played with PGPfone[2] on my 33 MHz laptop.[3] No FPU. 128-bit symmetric encryption. For voice, the processing power problem is solved to overkill. But PGPfone proved to be useless because it didn’t traverse NAT.

The ultimate lesson from PGPfone: NAT is inherently repressive. It divides the Internet into haves and have-nots, and most everybody is a have-not. If you want to contact another have-not, you must do it through the graces of someone who has public IP address space. That is why I started advocating for IPv6 long before any of my peers.[4]

[0]https://slashdot.org/story/05/12/16/070245/google-jabber-and...

[1]https://www.reddit.com/r/apple/comments/1xuzif/what_ever_hap...

[2]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PGPfone

[3]http://lowendmac.com/pb/powerbook-190cs.html

[4]https://version6.ru/en/ipv6-for-freedom

[rvern]

Sounds right, maybe Diaspora or XMPP would not become popular if they were advertised today. Software like VLC, Firefox, LibreOffice would because they're not communication platforms.

Chance might play a larger role than advertising in the early game, for communication platforms.

[pessimizer]

> 1. Facebook, Skype and WhatsApp solved problems others didn't and became big. Now it's too late to fight.

Facebook was at least the third widely adopted social network. It made it largely by targeting its marketing towards college kids. and expanding strategically and somewhat methodically. Other than its marketing, the only other reason Facebook did well was by becoming a programmer friendly platform. It was no better for users than the other ones.