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by Steltek 2741 days ago
A law mandating open access to APIs would do wonders to spur competition.

Remember Pidgin? Knitting together disparate IM platforms into one client was great. You can't do that with Facebook, their TOS doesn't allow for it.

Open access to 3rd party clients that can bridge platforms will break the network effect lock-in and allow for real competition to emerge.
2 comments
edhelas 2741 days ago
I am currently contributing on libraries for libpurple (the central library used in Pidgin) and Spectrum to improve the transports between those 3rd party networks and the XMPP one. Also with the integration of those transports within the Movim project.

Recently I was able to bridge Discord and Slack and working on Instagram (to finally have a decent way to use Instagram DM on desktop).

See https://github.com/EionRobb/purple-discord, https://github.com/EionRobb/purple-instagram and https://movim.eu/ :)

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javagram 2741 days ago
This current set of Facebook scandals wouldn’t exist if they had kept their platform closed and walled - the whole scandal seems to be that other companies were permitted access to the API (e.g. Cambridge Analytica). In response Facebook is locking down APIs and making their platform more closed to avoid such issues in the future.

Doesn’t Pidgin still support Facebook messenger?

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