Comment by simoncion
11 years ago
Step #4 (get your friends to use it) is really hard to do. I tried and failed with my friend group. If there's one non-technical user in the group (or one who is tremendously attached to their Hangouts chat history), you're probably doomed to failure.
i've had limited success, one factor that helped was me going cold turkey on the alternatives. also you define your own success, gaining a monopoly is rather a high standard!
We apparently have quite different friends. Removing myself from Hangouts means that I get information either in person, or through email, if at all.
I'm currently relying on the Signal rework of TextSecure to get most of us off of Hangouts: the big barrier to adoption has been easy-to-configure clients that work on Android, iOS, and desktop and sync message history amongst clients.
I have the same experience with not being signed into chat networks, or not having Facebook / WhatsApp / Twitter etc. etc. accounts. People either don't tell me anything, or they email.
The craziest thing I get asked is "Do you have WhatsApp? I can send you pictures, and it's FREE!". Oddly the thought of sending an email with a picture attached (how easy is it on a phone these days??) doesn't pop into their mind as being "free" either!!! Insane! Email is far superior, as I can archive it unlike IM history.
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web client xmpp isn't going to be very good at storing message history, i'll grant you.
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This.
If you won't drop the other networks there's no need for them to join your server, your still on the networks they're already using. Only you can change that.
I wrote a reply to another message that expressed this sentiment here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9267342