With all the current discussion about the threat that Instagram Threads has on the Fediverse and that article about how Google Embrace Extend Extinguished XMPP, I was left very confused, since that was the first time I’ve heard that Gchat supported XMPP or what XMPP actually is, and I’ve had my personal Gmail since beta (no, don’t ask for it), and before then, everybody was using AOL/MSN Messenger to talk with each other online. I don’t think I’ve ever heard of a single person who started using Gchat as an XMPP client.

Instead of a plot where Google took over XMPP userbase via EEE, it just seem to me more like XMPP was a niche protocol that very few hardcore enthusiasts used, and then Google tried to add support for it in their product, but ultimately decided it wasn’t worth the development effort to support a feature that very few of their users actually used and abandoned it in typical Google fashion.

So, to prove my point, how many people have used XMPP here, and how many people here haven’t?

  • Andy
    2•1 year ago

    Does that translate to ‘it will be nice to chat with people using Threads from my Mastodon account?’

    • swope
      4•1 year ago

      I think it’s a different thing. For me, my expectation is that Threads/Meta connecting to Fediverse is more like when AOL connected to IRC (specifically EFnet) in the 90s. I wasn’t really into Usenet, but Eternal September was pretty much the same wave. AOL pushed hard in advertising and recruiting users, and IRC and Usenet were originally populated with people who got into it more organically.

      I don’t remember Jabber or XMPP having any kind of discovery system. I only ever talked to people who knew already. So when Google connected Talk, it was just added convenience. I wasn’t bombarded with rude idiots like the AOL invasion of IRC. When Google ended XMPP support, I was disappointed, but I continued using XMPP with my friends.

      I think Meta is spending a ton on promoting Threads, and it’s going to bring in a lot of people with different values. It’s going to be unpleasant for me, but I think that’s just the self-similar fractal that is the Internet.