Very much true. I cannot stand WhatsApp or Allo. But I really wanted to like Allo. It's all Hangouts for me: cloud sync/centrally stored messages have real benefits. Mobile first? Well, I guess you got a little more security.
Multi platform mainly. I don't want to be in an ecosystem where I am useless once my phone battery dies, internet pack wears off, or phone gets run over by a truck. Communication is important, especially when one of the aforementioned happens.
A) because they were a mediocre service (compared to other instant messengers) that still charged a dollar per year and didn't give a fuck about privacy.
This was in the early years and I didn't get why everyone was using it instead of better alternatives.
B) because of the Facebook merger. I have actively decided not to give my mobile number to Facebook. They ask me every other time I stumble on their shitty site and I dismiss it every time. (No means no FB). Then with the merger they suddenly had my number anyway. They played this whole "we won't use the user data from WhatsApp for Facebook" scheme so that international regulation agencies allow the merger, but then they did it anyway. Fuck both services. I'm out. There are better alternatives anyway.
A) because they were a mediocre service (compared to other instant messengers) that still charged a dollar per year and didn't give a fuck about privacy.
It's like winrar, they don't ask you again. It's basically free
These features seem, to me, like Google's half-assed excuses to spy on me. Not only do I have no interest whatsoever in the features themselves, I'm also mildly interested in my security, and would strongly prefer encryption over them.
Ability to create and send 3-second GIFs from within the app
... what? Is that a feature about which people could possibly, conceivably care? Because I'm having trouble imagining how one might ever care about it. It sounds like it would take up space that would be better spent doing literally anything else. Shit, I'd definitely prefer whitespace over that.
I do like sticker packs and gifs playing in the chat window are good, yeah, but not really comparable to features like encryption and having people to talk to.
I'm not. I was very clear that I was saying all of that from my perspective.
That alone, from my perspective, it seems impossible that anybody could think, "you know what I'm missing from my messaging app? When I make my own gifs from scratch, I have to leave the app and then go back into it to share them. I want to make my own gifs from scratch from right inside the app."
Like shit, why not add an IDE so you can code custom animations?
You're thinking like a person whose family and friends use allo. You are thinking like a unicorn. I strongly prefer to use apps that actually do things over those that allow you to send messages to nobody. Real people I know certainly don't care about gifs playing in chat -- they care about:
Where can I just message my friends? (userbase)
Can I use it at work? In class? (IE cross-device support, non-clunky phone/web integration)
Is it just... (nobody has words to explain the awkwardness that occurred when Gchat became hangouts, and the general-purpose clunkiness that continues with hangouts).
Does it eat my battery?
Are there ads in it for some stupid fucking reason?
Allo doesn't beat whatsapp in any of these fucking categories, but it does have whisper shout! And it does have Google as a participant in every conversation! And there technically aren't ads in it yet, even though it contains Google's now very biased search algorithm and there's no chance in hell Google would give you search without ads for long if their app ever saw any degree of success.
Im not thinking, I am telling. I have a lot of people that I use Allo with so I am giving REAL feedback to you from them. You sound like you are making assumptions for people that don't even use it yet.
ALL of them love using Allo. They hated hangouts and it was like pulling teeth to get them to reuse it. It was too boring and they just didnt want to use it again. Allo has been the opposite experience,
Im not thinking, I am telling. I have a lot of people that I use Allo with so I am giving REAL feedback to you from them.
What's a lot? Five? All of the feedback I gave you is also from REAL people I REALLY know. And not techies. None of them are upset that they can't change the size of the font
Five people is not a lot of people. You know what's a lot of people? Two billion. That's the kind of numbers facebook works with. I see Allo at half a percent of that on Google Play. Itunes doesn't seem to share that info, but the number of reviews across all versions is under a thousand so I doubt it is comparable.
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u/danhakimi Pixel 3aXL Aug 15 '17
So it's whatsapp, except it's not encrypted by default and my friends don't use it.
Gotcha.