[ljm]

Google, Meta and Slack have all had their hand in EEE'ing XMPP, which for a long time was the standard for open messaging. Slack and Discord have gone a level above and locked IRC behind their walled gardens, despite their very existence being based on IRC.

A healthy market would see casual interop between these services, and they all started with that interop before slowly strangling it out and monetising through adverts, tracking, data mining, and exclusivity. Open protocols allow you to bypass that though, which is why each of these networks are locked down.

There's no reason why your Airpods should talk over a proprietary Apple protocol and your web apps only work 100% effectively on chrome browsers, having inferior functionality by design if you don't commit fully to the landlord of your walled garden of choice.