Some thoughts on IM/Chat and the “Paypal Effect”

So, I’m sitting here forcing myself to deal with minor screen tearing from running Discord, and a thought comes to mind. People complain about applications screwing them over, but if those they talk to only use that application, what really gives them the freedom to drop it?

And yes, I’m going there with this, but it brings up a good point. I know people who solely use Telegram + Discord for communications, and refuse to use anything else because it works for them. However, the problem is that it doesn’t work for everyone, especially people who want to keep in contact with them.

Telegram requires a non-VoIP mobile phone number to even sign up for the service, much less use it. Not everyone can afford smartphones, as the ability to purchase such phones is being monitored as if a terrorist is going to pop in any minute and snatch up one to use for a nefarious plot. There’s also the fact that it automatically adds people in your contact list, and if someone else has your phone number, it notifies them the moment you sign up for the service. Oh, and it’s also not trusted by everyone, since they were very wary of having an open audit of their home-built cryptography.

Then there’s Discord, which isn’t too bad…if you have the hardware for it. I myself use a Samsung Series 5 laptop, and while Discord is open, I have minor screen tearing just from moving my mouse. If I start up a game, I lose a full 10-20 FPS so long as Discord is running. Even a game from 1999—Star Trek: Birth of the Federation—begins to chug while it’s running! One of my mates has even had sound issues thanks to Discord being open.

Yet, people will just say they aren’t having the same problems—and probably look at us like we’re doing something wrong. That honestly seems to be the most common response to such issues: it works for me, so it must be your fault.

But here’s where this leads: Why do people so heavily limit themselves to only a few bands of communication? Especially when the choice bands can be struck with outages that leave those who want to talk with them completely unable to.

I completely understand that managing multiple chat applications is annoying. That’s why Trillian, Pidgin, and many other multi-protocol clients were made. However, it also limits interactions rather severely for those who simply can’t move over.

Personally, I’ve been trying to keep myself open on AIM, XMPP, IRC, Skype, Discord, and Telegram (and occasionally Steam when I can remember). I want to drop Discord and Telegram because of just how much trouble they’ve caused me, but 99% of people I talk to are almost exclusively on those two platforms, having moved away from Skype because of issues (which I’ll talk about next post).

What are my options? Well, I can drop those two platforms, but I won’t be talking with many people. Or, I can stay on them and be frustrated to no end. I could also just bide my time and wait until the “next big thing” drops so people move to that, but who knows when that’ll happen.

I dunno. Just some thoughts.