[tigroferoce]

The current scenario is so broken. You have multiple different platforms that do not interoperate with each other.

Different platforms have become the standard de facto in different regions of the world (iMessage in us, WhatsApp in Europe, WeChat in china, ..).

All of these platforms belong to private companies.

A sane landscape would be having platform interoperability, at least for the most common features and then let companies compete on features, not on user networks.

In Europe it is virtually impossible no to use WhatsApp, especially if you have kids. I don’t like it, but it’s one of the service I use the most, because I’m forced to.

[aurareturn]

I have a few messaging apps on my phone. It doesn't bother me at all that I communicate with my family using iMessage, some friends with Whatsapp, and some friends with other chat apps, and work using Slack.

What's the problem exactly?

To have a standard? Isn't that what phone numbers and SMS are if you want a standard way of reaching someone?

If you have other standards, you reduce innovation because in order to change anything, you have to get 100s of companies to agree and comply.

But if Whatsapp, iOS, Viber, WeChat, etc wants to make something better, they can write the code and release it tomorrow.

Users have chosen the private model. It's better. It's faster. It innovates more. If you want a standard, it'll just become like SMS years later. I don't want one single app. Each app does something better.