[darklajid]

My mail clients have push support.

Look, I'm not saying 'Use mail for IM' nor do I claim that this is ideal. I'm saying that this is what I resort to because that's the _only_ thing that works.

In my world, there _is_ no IM solution. I don't have the necessary clients - or my friends don't. Or a subset of the people I want to reach are on a different service (Friend A & B on Hangout, C is using WA or Threema). The IM you talk about? It doesn't exist in my world and only therefor mail qualifies as 'as good as possible, given the environment'.

And .. if that makes 'IM' less like (each * a new message)

* Hi.

* You there?

* What are you doing?

* What about a beer tonight?

and leads to

"Hey, want to have a beer tonight?"

(still 'instant', as in 'reaches me in seconds and reply might! be equally fast) - all the better.