After ~40 years of development, we are in a place where people need 5+ “apps” just to chat with most of their contacts. Imagine having to use a separate app for each email server, for example. People are brainwashed to think in terms of "There's an app for that." But an app is usually the last thing you should think about when making your technological choices…
Does it lock you in? Is it built on top of open protocols or APIs? Is it decentralized? Federated or distributed? Does it work without a mobile device and/or phone number? Can anybody implement their own client for any OS or the #web or are you stuck with the ones the app is available for? Failing that, you are surrendering your freedoms to somebody else making the choices for you. And they can change these decisions anytime in the future.
Also, you are making it harder for any new platform to emerge, because “it doesn’t have the apps I need”.
#Privacy is important but (even more) so is #freedom. Until we learn that, we’ll just keep kicking the can down the road to another app claiming to be the silver bullet. Or cheer anytime someone introduces a client simulating 15 different “apps”, shipping you jailbroken iPhones just to use one of them.
https://xmpp.org/2021/01/instant-messaging-its-not-about-the-app/ from @xmpp