[Gualdrapo]

As a not-that-techy person I just sorely miss the glorious days of multi-service IM apps which made your messaging transparent, reliable and fully integrated to whatever you were using. I find utterly ridiculous to have multiple half-baked apps in both desktop and mobile for each service because reasons.

I reckon RCS tried to circumvent that to a point (but still saying 'screw you' to desktop users) but alas it seems this horrible too-many-IM-apps won't be ever solved.

[Gigachad]

These became irrelevant with the creation of centralised notification services from google and apple which allow your device to receive messages from an unlimited number of services without having to have the apps running or consuming resources.

It is still an issue for desktop but that’s a minority of IM users these days.

[poisonborz]

At least on desktop you have easy multi-messenger apps (Electron apps that have nice tabbed interface for web versions) like Ferdium or Hamsket. Sure, it's a bit of a resource hog, doesn't work for all services (eg. Signal) but you do get universal notifications and a single app window.

[skinnymuch]

We have Matrix bridging and Mattermost nowadays so we have https://Beeper.com and https://Texts.com and similar open source matrix installs. All in one app is amazing.

[poisonborz]

With how complex messaging became, I'm not even sure this is the best method for everyone. Sure, having basic chat functionality and interoperability is great and should be even mandatory. But there are a lot of platform-specific feats that break or are impossible this way. Until the utopia that everyone unites in a common protocol, webapps and these kind of switching apps are a great alternative, not just a stopgap.

[skinnymuch]

I think this stuff is too much for most people to use, but Beeper is not missing anything deal breaking. I use it daily and besides being bulky, it has nearly everything one would expect. For most apps, it has their reactions functionality for example.

What’s missing: The reply mechanism doesn’t work as well as it does for specific apps that are better with this. It does basic reply quoting but that’s all.

Notifications could be better. There’s no customization per type of app. They do all keyword notifications which almost no app does. However since notifications are all or nothing it is just okay.

—

Overall, the app is super solid and works well. I agree I don’t think it’s perfect and has plenty of bugs or lacks specific nuanced features.

I don’t think we will ever get a common uniting protocol. We never had it. Even when jabber was the common protocol, FBM didn’t support group chats with it.

I am assuming Matrix is the best we will get. Or some other sleeker app building off Matrix will come out. We do have MatterMost too but it seems Matrix “won”

[skinnymuch]

I pay for https://Beeper.com, but Matrix bridging via self hosting for free allows a solid experience for all in one