[camehere2saydis]

My personal "scapegoat" for this is Skype. In my timeline, it was the first messenger to grow big among non-techies all over the world (not in the least because of its quite functional voice and video integration.) It basically set the bar for "instant messaging" UX; developers have been building in terms of that paradigm ever since.

It's important to note that siloing users within a proprietary namespace is also part of that UX. As usual, users come to demand what they've been force-fed long enough: so now you have the media complaining about privacy with a tone of learned helplessness while absolutely unable to wrap their heads around federation.

Delta Chat (https://delta.chat/en/) is an interesting project that provides a IM-like experience on top of email infrastructure. However all levels of the stack have become so bloated that it is nigh impossible to release anything that users won't perceive as shoddy without VC-scale funding.

[darau1]

Re: Delta Chat, I've often wondered if a solution existed like this, because in my eye the "problem" with email is that it's long-form. Nobody wants to compose an email just to send a one or two liner (good morning, what's up, etc). I'll check this out, thanks!

Re: Skype I agree, my parents use Skype, and even though I never use it, if/when I log in there's always someone I haven't spoken to in the better part of a decade, still online as if they've been using it every day since.