[matheusmoreira]

They don't have to explicitly require that of communications services. Just write interoperability into law and the problem goes away.

The reason they don't work with each other is there's a line in the terms of service that says you can't use anything but their official software to interact with their servers. WhatsApp will literally ban your number forevef if it detects this. That's the root cause of the shittiness of apps. They very much want you locked in and forced to use their shitty proprietary software. If society makes such terms illegal and unenforceable, free software clients will start showing up and other companies will start integrating with their competitors whether they like it or not. This will also fix all other apps of any kind, including social media apps. It will kill things like remote attestation and web environment integrity. It will just fix everything.

[account42]

Third-party clients are great and I agree that the ability to use them should be enforced by law. But really, that's not enough - I don't want accounts on numerous different networks just because one group of friends is here and another is there and the school is using that one etc. Once you are at a certain size, you should be required to federate with the one official chat network.

[raxxorraxor]

Why? I don't want into any "official chat network". I despise whatsapp and its success in Europe is a testament to the lacking class, culture and taste of its clueless inhabitants.