Digital Disappointment
Recently a friend reached out to chat and thanks to the state of our digital ecosystem, and as a digital curmudgeon the whole thing struck me as such a needless shame. Massive corporate platforms are battling for market share seeking leverage to grow their networks, and the effects are decidedly anti-consumer friendly. All that I can do is shine a light.
Friend: “How about video chat tomorrow after 10am?” [SMS text message]
Me: “Great, it should work any time. Talk soon!” [SMS text message reply]
Me (later the next day): “I replied but never heard back, hope all’s well.” [Email]
Friend (much later): “I never got your replies. How about next week?” [Email]
Currently Apple (iPhone) and Google (Android) are battling over messaging. Apple is pushing the proprietary iMessage protocol for iPhone to iPhone rich messaging, while Google supports the new RCS standard that provides similar functionality but is not iMessage compatible. (This is an oversimplification and I am not an expert, but for our purposes this synopsis is enough as evidenced by this post. If details are of interest, check out this article that lists nine things users need to check in order to make messaging work properly — that’s ridiculous.)
Rather than pick sides, my claim here is that while these titans battle for dominance, everyday users who expect that sending and receiving messages will just work suffer the consequences. In fact, over twenty years ago the same silly battle played out, again in messaging, between AOL and Microsoft (as documented in the book Bitwise: A Life in Code by David Auerbach).
The broad outlines of the story line up cleanly as history in this case basically repeating itself. The innovator is first to market with a proprietary technology that works only between their branded systems. The competitor bangs on the door hoping for some interoperability, but it’s at best a poor compromise. Before long the competitor proposes a new open standard and invites the innovator to endorse it which they are loath to do since that would be stepping back and relinquishing their lead. It’s a game of chicken between the titans of tech pushing their agendas ahead without breaking the user experience too egregiously. And historically technology companies love to point fingers at each other whenever interoperability breaks down because that absolves both sides of any actual culpability.
As icing on the cake, this was to be a Zoom call which means that I must install Zoom software since they do not support a browser interface as Google Meet and many others do. Since Zoom does not support the Linux platform I must use a cheap tablet that I’ve dedicated for this purpose as a last resort. There are so many video calling brands that I won’t even attempt to list them. If there is any significant interoperability among these I have been unable to learn any such details. It’s precisely the same game, with end users jumping through hoops to oblige.
On top of all that, there flaming liqueur sauce over the icing. I’ll mention that my friend mentioned seeing a great new movie (not included in the storyline above). Here is another battle of titans, this time with premium content instead of protocols. Unless you subscribe to Netflix, HBO, Disney plus, Prime, Peacock, Hulu, and more, there will be movies you cannot view because all of these grab exclusive content to lure people to sign up. Make it difficult or expensive to cancel, and they capture monthly fees at a very profitable markup.
This pattern of obnoxious incompatibility needs to change or I fear that our technological landscape will become a toxic waste dump over time. We don’t need multiple incompatible protocols for communications, for social media, for media, or for content. None of these should be proprietary either, especially if millions of people depend on these technologies, but that’s another kettle of fish.
Now in our third decade of these games, consumers are deeply entrenched in learned helplessness (the psychological state where after powerlessly bearing aversive stimuli the will to resist is crushed). Out of principle, I resist pressure to sign up for yet another account to join some network, but occasionally I bend my own rule. My friends and colleagues by now must be thoroughly frustrated by my obstinance, and I have no illusions that my actions have any positive impact on the industry. Nonetheless, unless we somehow push back there is no reason to think anything will change and we’ll be stuck like this even as our technology matures into the otherwise promising future.
The saddest part is that these battles of the titans rarely have happy endings for anyone. AOL Instant Messenger is no more. Microsoft eventually updated their document format from proprietary DOC to standard based DOCX. While nobody knows how this story will play out in its various sectors, who is asking for a future filled with incompatible technologies and how is that an ethical strategy for anyone to pursue?
The story continues: read Quality > Quantity.
