Post 9grfPLRcdScrDwEXZo by calvin@cronk.stenoweb.net
 (DIR) More posts by calvin@cronk.stenoweb.net
 (DIR) Post #9grfPLRcdScrDwEXZo by calvin@cronk.stenoweb.net
       2019-03-17T14:24:20Z
       
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       why is no one trying to unify chat protocols into a single application anymore, like the Good Ol' Days of gaim/pidgin? i have too many
       
 (DIR) Post #9grfkQrLhKnk6DK2dM by bhtooefr@mastodon.social
       2019-03-17T14:27:54Z
       
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       @calvin I wouldn't be surprised if it's because of "agile development" on the part of the chat app developers("agile development" meaning that you can't keep up with reverse engineering the protocol every time they change it specifically to screw your third-party client over)and if you charge for the client and pay devs to reverse it, you now have a business entity that the chat app devs can suealso could be that implementing the crypto may be too hard for a unified app's developers?
       
 (DIR) Post #9grfrz78jpVgMiJGDo by calvin@cronk.stenoweb.net
       2019-03-17T14:29:12Z
       
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       @bhtooefr that, and i wonder if the makeup of devs is different to what it was in say, 2003
       
 (DIR) Post #9grg7I8iHheDiPLPvc by bhtooefr@mastodon.social
       2019-03-17T14:32:17Z
       
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       @calvin oh, and another issue is... there weren't that many protocols in Pidgin's heydayI mean, you basically had OSCAR, MSNP, YMSG, and XMPP, for most of what was actually used, and IIRC OSCAR was the only real place where whack-a-mole was being played.And, I mean, there were paid multiprotocol clients back then too, but I wonder how many people would pay for a multiprotocol client in 2019.
       
 (DIR) Post #9grgAtgn8GPT2g0HVQ by diodelass@cybre.space
       2019-03-17T14:32:31Z
       
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       @calvin Mostly because they're all walled gardens now that won't allow clients other than the Official App to connect. The old aggregators still exist and work fine, but all the popular Chat Apps have specifically designed their services to be incompatible with any of them, and also forbidden third-party clients in their ToS for good measure.People are still trying, believe me, but it's really not like it used to be.
       
 (DIR) Post #9grgZ4ygoSPF0GuF16 by calvin@cronk.stenoweb.net
       2019-03-17T14:37:00Z
       
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       @diodelass true, but the aggregators were fighting back against trillian and pidgin BITD too; it just seems like there's no activity to try and say, get Discord or Slack into these appsmaybe Matrix bridges might make it better, but Matrix has uh, fundamental scaling problems
       
 (DIR) Post #9grgiqLI58xuVZ8Kjw by bhtooefr@mastodon.social
       2019-03-17T14:38:58Z
       
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       @calvin @diodelass I almost wonder if someone will try to make an aggregator that just runs the first-party client in an embedded Chromium (because, let's face it, this shit is all Electroshits on the desktop) and screenscrapes it, to avoid those ToS issues
       
 (DIR) Post #9grioRLS8OLqcs0Q1w by georgieboy@toot.cat
       2019-03-17T15:02:19Z
       
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       @calvin Rambox works ok for me. It’s not a panacea but it does let me use a single client for Slack/Mattermost/Teams. Teams isn’t so good but the official clients are garbage too, so I don’t think it’s the fault of the client.
       
 (DIR) Post #9gs4VDTPgNHN5qy3vc by DHeadshot@xkcd.network
       2019-03-17T19:05:19Z
       
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       @calvinI miss Trillian; the only thing it did that still works is IRC (well, ICQ a bit, but no-one uses it). RIP AIM, MSN, YIM, Google Talk, etc...