Reverting to SMS is the problem, though. It gives participants the illusion that the conversation can be extended to anyone, but once they find out that the platform loses features and degrades with the addition of an android participant, that person is excluded so that the rest can keep using the full-featured platform.
The suggestion of WhatsApp is so that everyone can use their own phone and have full features. If someone wants to join the chat, then its on them to get on board with what everyone else wants.
> If someone wants to join the chat, then its on them to get on board with what everyone else wants.
However, when a community of people chooses Whatsapp as the exclusive form of communication, everyone in that community is forced to get that app or be left out of the loop. Those who object to installing Whatsapp because of the serious privacy controversies surrounding its parent are left with no choice.
This is where Messages shines, as it doesn't exclude those who can't or don't want to get an Apple device. And while the SMS fallback is indeed degraded, it still fulfills its basic promise: quick textual exchange of information. Additionally, if the recipient does get excluded because of the degraded experience, it shifts the fault and liability for not-knowing from the recipient who didn't want to accept the WhatsApp TOS to the senders who didn't provide the information because they didn't like the green bubble, although I'm fully aware that that's not how it always plays out in reality.
Neither approach is ideal, but I believe it's more important that no one should feel forced to install a proprietary app they don't trust just so they can stay up to date with their community, even if they are the single person objecting.
TL;DR Even though it falls back to its most rudimentary form, Messages by default doesn't cut off people that don't bring in any money for its parent. WhatsApp does.
I'd put the fault with the smartphone + software industry for failing to come up with a shared open/secure messaging protocol, with fault also to governments for not insisting on such a protocol, and fault also on people who willingly use proprietary systems including WhatsApp and Messages with rejection of "green bubbles".
The current situation of competing proprietary non-interoperable systems seems ridiculous.
My understanding is that the Signal protocol is exactly that and is even used (or at least claimed to me used) by WhatsApp under the hood, although obviously we shouldn't take them at their word re: the details of their implementation / that they aren't capturing / collecting / sending user input before and/or after the "ends" of the "E2E", so to speak.
The issue isn't as much the lack of an open and secure messaging protocol as it is an inability to build a social network on an open client that is as large as the ones that private corporations have been able to build with their closed source solutions.
Their adding of additional features into their messaging apps that add both usability and complexity makes this an even more difficult barrier to overcome.
Absolutely, but Whatsapp it isn't distinguishing any less between Whatsapp users and non-Whatsapp users.
Messages doesn't entirely cut you off from people who don't bring money to Apple, and it doesn't require another app to communicate with them. It will handle and integrate it all in the same interface with iMessage, seamlessly switching in the background to make that possible. Whatsapp, OTOH, plainly refuses to let you interact with anyone who prefers not to accept an intrusive TOS and bring in (ad) money to Facebook.
I agree that both apps have different approaches and both have pros and cons, but I don't support the suggestion that Whatsapp, or any similar app for that matter, is any less "vendor lock-in" than Messages.
In order to use Messages, you need to have an iPhone (which you need to buy from the same vendor who wants you to use and owns Messages). WhatsApp is just an app.
I'm unsure of what do you mean when you say you see the same "vendor lock-in" in both cases.
That's configurable and I have iMessage set to NOT revert to SMS for any reason. I know others who have this set as well.
Given the differences in authentication and encryption, I consider that feature to be a security hole. And honestly, in my experience it doesn't work very well.
When I need to chat with folks who don't have an iPhone, I use a different app, like Google Voice or WhatsApp.
The suggestion of WhatsApp is so that everyone can use their own phone and have full features. If someone wants to join the chat, then its on them to get on board with what everyone else wants.