This is a fascinating read and very relevant given that Meta is moving closer to connecting Threads (per OP). The article gives a good example with How Google killed XMPP
The article lacks some details that are inconvenient to the point it makes. What was the state of XMPP before being adopted by tech giants and after they dropped it / walled it off? What could be done to prevent it?
I just remember that Google used to be able to talk to Facebook and it was awesome.
Before that I used Trillian which had to log in to all the networks. There was one beautiful moment in time where you could just use an XMPP client and you were able to reach most of the people you know
What was the state of XMPP before being adopted by tech giants and after they dropped it / walled it off?
It was slowly gaining a user base. It was a good alternative to MSN Messenger and other big corp messaging protocols (Yahoo Talk or whatever it was called).
Yes, it was a good alternative, and it remains good alternative now although Matrix seems way more popular these days. Nothing really changed regardless of adopting XMPP because with a hindsight we know that for tech giants it’s the platform and not protocol that captures mainstream popularity:
That is true. Discord - gaming, Messenger - FB. Google just couldn’t tie it with any social network, so it flopped… and their numerous attempts at creating one.