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by ausjke 2258 days ago
LINE, whatsapp etc are catching up wechat.

Instead of cloning wechat, an alternative would be developing a proxy between IM apps, i.e. all wechat messages can be forwarded to whatsapp so it become part of whatsapp, well, kind of, it's painful to use whatsapp, LINE, telegram, wechat at the same time, need something to "unite" them so we can go to one place and do it all.
3 comments
nradov 2258 days ago
Chat vendors have no incentive to support standards based interoperability. They all want to leverage network effects to maximize switching costs and keep users confined to their walled gardens. The only way to break this would probably be government mandates.
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t0astbread 2258 days ago
Wasn't XMPP supposed to do something like that?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/XMPP#Connecting_to_other_proto...

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ryukafalz 2258 days ago
XMPP does it, Matrix does it: https://matrix.org/bridges/

...honestly most of the open chat protocols end up with bridges since it's easier to do there than with the proprietary ones. WhatsApp for example will ban you if they see you trying to connect with a third-party client; using the Matrix bridge actually involves running Android with the official client in a VM.

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thoraway1010 2258 days ago
100% not true. Who accepts payments using Line in china?

Wechat was doing 1 billion transactions PER DAY. Revenue for 2019 from fintech (wechat pay etc) was up something like 30% + (100B RMB?)

All these competitors "catching up" to wechat - I mean, is line even profitable or at similar scale?

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