In most countries, the most used messenger app is Whatsapp or Wechat or LINE or KakaoTalk or whatever.

In the USA, the most common messenger is iMessage. Unfortunately, unlike all the other apps I named, there's no Android app for it. Instead, if you try to iMessage an android recipient, suddenly iMessage turns into your phone's SMS app (not really sure why, feels like that should be a separate app), and half the features go away.

You can no longer remove people from group chats (if any 1 of them has an android), you get strange messages sometimes, you don't get typing indicators. If they use RCS, and then go on a vacation to a country without RCS, suddenly your chat can break in very strange ways.

As a result, it's very common in the US for people to be ostracized from iPhone friend groups due to not having an iPhone.

When you use dating apps, if eventually you trade numbers and your partner is a green bubble, that's usually enough to end any chances at a relationship. Your family will remove you from the family group chat after the first low-resolution group photo.

A company made a solution to this called Beeper Mini, allowing people to have blue bubbles while using android phones, and Apple of course immediately shut it down because Apple wants the iOS club in the US to have this tangible social benefit, of you being able to have a wider dating pool, being able to talk to your family, and so on. https://www.macrumors.com/2023/12/10/apple-confirms-it-shut-...

It's a truly bizarre state of affairs.

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retired 8 hours ago | parent [-]

I’m honestly not sure which is more dystopian: the American blue/green bubble divide, or the situation in Spain where my doctor sends blood test results over WhatsApp, delivery drivers call me on WhatsApp, and couriers ask me to share my live location because they can’t find my building. Nearly all day-to-day communication is funnelled through a single Meta-owned channel.

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TheDong 8 hours ago | parent [-]

I think the least dystopian is a semi-government owned app, like WeChat in china.

iMessage is also controlled by a private company, and by my estimate, one of the most evil ones. Apple and Google are the two companies most complicit in feeding highly addictive and exploitative gambling apps to kids via their app stores, and they both profit massively off of it via 30% cuts.

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retired 7 hours ago | parent | next [-]

The least dystopian communication is email. Plenty secure, you are able to set-up your own server, you can communicate with everyone regardless of their OS or client. Rich text, photo support, video support. Open protocols.

A sort of email but then for short messages would be awesome.

	▲	velocity3230 18 minutes ago \| parent \| next [-]
		Matrix
	▲	pseudalopex 4 hours ago \| parent \| prev [-]
		Delta Chat is short messages over email.

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fragmede 7 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

That's got to be the most dystopian one of them all! It's government owned, so conspiracy theory is that the CCP can see everything you write and hear and see in the app. Whatsapp is end to end encrypted, so meta knows your metadata, so they can show you ads, but that's tiny dystopia compared to the government of the country you live in reading and listening to everything you do on your phone