Comment by fao_

6 years ago

Honestly this seems like a feature of the social circles involved. I can't really imagine being, or even wanting to be, around people who are so shallow they won't have someone in a group because they can't change the chat name, or at least, people who wouldn't be willing to move to other types of software to accomodate people in the group. It seems like basic human decency that when someone in the group says "I can't xyz" you go "ok what can we do instead?". I'm not sure I can imagine caring so little about other people, and I definitely do not want to be around people who don't.

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fao_

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saagarjha  6 years ago

The parent comment mentioned some of the reasons why it goes beyond the normal "lol you're too poor to buy an iPhone". SMS chats are majorly crippled compared to iMessage ones, and this is technical functionality, not just bubble color. You can't really change the people in an SMS chat, iMessage features don't work (in some instances hilariously: you'll get a text like "so-and-so liked this message" instead of a reaction)…people just don't want to deal with it. And yes, iMessage makes no effort to destigmatize the person who converts your iMessage chat into an SMS conversation.

  • Larrikin  6 years ago

    But people can just use LINE, WhatsApp, Snapchat, Instagram, messenger, etc and get all the features and more which in my experience as an android user is what actually happens than this weird shallow world of green and blue bubbles I've heard about on the internet.

    Different friend groups may prefer different platforms, but it's pretty rare where someone new to the group refuses what the group is already using, which is almost never plain sms/imessage.

    Google voice/sms is almost always for one on one friends where we don't share anyone in common or older relatives.

    • wan23  6 years ago

      > Different friend groups may prefer different platforms, but it's pretty rare where someone new to the group refuses what the group is already using

      You made the point yourself here. If the messaging platform the group prefers is iMessage then it's somewhat awkward when someone new to the group refuses to use it. Have you ever tried to get a bunch of people to switch platforms for a single group chat? When most of the people have a working solution already it's practically impossible.

    • saagarjha  6 years ago

      As has been mentioned many times in the other comments, those force you to download something, perhaps make an account, make sure everyone has it…whereas 90% of the people might already have an iPhone, which might be better than the number for anything else.

      18 replies →

    • scarface74  6 years ago

      Blame Google for never getting messaging right and having multiple chat apps at the sane time.

      I’m buying my parents an iPad just because every other type video chat is more convoluted than just clicking on FaceTime from contacts.

      6 replies →

the_snooze  6 years ago

It’s often not malice or conscious choice as you seem to think. It’s that technical designs have effects on social dynamics. Here’s an example I wrote elsewhere:

> Social dynamics are subtle. For example, group SMS doesn’t support contact names. If you add someone to a group SMS, the other people only see a phone number unless they go out of their way to add the new guy to their contact list. Likewise, the new person has to add everyone else to see names. Decades of research in behavioral economics show just how powerful defaults are, so most people probably won’t bother to add names. Without names, the new person will have a more difficult time connecting with the group.