
Ask HN: What features would a perfect messaging platform have? - matlin
It seems today that messaging is extremely fragmented between many popular protocols&#x2F;services like Whatsapp, SMS, Messenger, WeChat, email, Signal, Snapchat, etc yet there are still many new messaging apps being created everyday to solve legitimate pain points. What features are lacking or missing in these popular offerings that you think would be essential for a one-size-fits-all messaging solution?
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mindcrime
Here's what I'd want:

1\. Would be based on an open standard, with multiple F/OSS implementations of
both server and client.

2\. Would support federation so that everyone isn't required to sign into the
same server.

3\. Would support encryption... actually, I'd say encrypted messages should be
the default and it should be hard (but not impossible) to send a non-encrypted
message.

4\. Client support on mobile, desktop, and web.

5\. Group chat support

6\. I'd favor text as the fundamental medium of exchange, but the service
should facilitate attaching voice / video / images / etc. as well. Real-time
voice/video communication would be a handy extra to me.

~~~
matlin
Do you think any apps currently meet all of your needs / what ways are you
able to accomplish this form of communication with existing services?

~~~
mindcrime
I think an XMPP based service gets pretty close. At least I consider those the
closest thing we have today, to an ideal messaging service.

Making encryption easier to use, or even the default, is probably the biggest
hole I see with (most?) existing XMPP services.

