abandoning MSN
Since the revelation of Microsoft's (rather frivolous) censorship of MSN, my dissastisfaction with the IM system has been thrust beyond tolerable limits. I am abandoning MSN.
In fact, I've already made the switch to XMPP, but I'm continuing to use MSN for a couple of months, in order to encourage as many as possible to also switch. So far, that's four people... far from stellar, but significantly better than none. What does concern me, however, is the number of people who exhibit complete apathy with regards to a deteriorating user experience and the undermining of their digital liberties, even when presented with significant evidence of these. Responses like "MSN works fine for me, so why change" might well be indicative of apathy, but experience has shown that the issue is more complicated and deeper than people simply "not caring".
ICQ and MSN
Sure, MSN "works", and of course most of your friends are still using it, so there's little incentive to change. But is this really the case? 8 years ago, everyone I knew jumped platform from ICQ to MSN in a matter of weeks. ICQ worked fine, and we were all quite content with it. Yet something happened to cause this momentous event. Although I believe that at the time, MSN was an inferior platform (although it did improve a lot, before going downhill and turning into what it is today), people were enticed to MSN by the Microsoft Passport integration, a feature that allowed one set of contacts to be shared by both Hotmail and MSN Messenger.
This serves as proof that mass abandonment of a platorm that "just works", and with which people are satisfied, can and does occur. So why isn't it occurring in this situation? I believe there is one subtle difference between the current situation, and what happened with ICQ and MSN... and I will get to that a bit later.
the problems with MSN
I will take a few moments to discuss some of the problems with MSN, both from a usability and technical perspective.
The biggest problem with the MSN user experience is the feature bloat. MSN was a fairly clean and simple to use system in the early days. Then they started adding features like there was no tomorrow - mostly absurd features that have no place in a text IM protocol. Some of these include:
- custom emoticons (heck, I find any graphical emoticons superfluous and annoying)
- winks
- handwriting
- THOSE INFERNAL NUDGES
The fact that some people actually enjoy and appreciate these touches greatly distrubs me.
A second major detractor from the user experience is the advertising which permeates the official clients. Granted, you can use a third-party client, as I have done for several years, but most people don't even know they exist.
On the technical side, the protocol is proprietary and closed (the protocol had to be reverse-engineered before third-party implementations could exist).
The system is also centralised, relying on a small cluster of servers goverened by a single entity (Microsoft). Which also means a single point of failure for the entire network.
Finally, on the matter of the recent censorship issues, I have a couple of points:
- This censorship is preventing many kinds of legitimate communication between users.
- The censorship is clearly designed to limit propagation through the network of URLs pointing to sites that exploit MSN, Windows, or other Microsoft software, but these sites can simply relocate to other URLs, meaning the censorhip is futile. Furthermore, such relocation, should they occur, would most likely result in more frivolous censorship.
- These measures would be totally unnecessary if Microsoft would just fix their broken, insecure software!
XMPP
My search for a superior IM system led me swiftly to XMPP (eXtensible Messaging and Presence Protocol). XMPP is everything MSN is not. XMPP is an open standard, built on XML. It is a decentralised system, and the protocol is implemented in many clients (both dedicated and multi-protocol). Importantly, it has very little in the way of feature bloat.
a quick comparison
-MSN supports text and voice communications, and all the regular IM features.
-Google Talk supports text communications (using XMPP) and voice communications, with all the usual IM features.
-Pidgin is a multi-protocol client that supports just about every text chat protocol ever invented.
Google Talk installer: 1.5MB
Pidgin installer (Windows, no GTK+): 5.7MB
Windows Live Messenger 8.1 installer: 17.2MB
...make of it what you will.
why won't people switch?
That is the million dollar question. Although in my experience, users are quite likely to simply say "meh" at the prospect of changing, it cannot just be put down to apathy. The mass abandonment of ICQ in favour of MSN that occurred serves as evidence that, at least 8 years ago, users were indeed open to switching to a platform that offered a better experience. I don't believe that has changed.
The situation today differs slightly, in one important area. I believe it all comes down to instant gratification. With the switch to MSN, users benefited immensely and immediately from the system that allowed contacts to be shared between Hotmail and MSN Messenger. With a switch to XMPP, the only positive change users are likely to notice immediately is the lack of advertising. The true benefits are felt and appreciated over time.
With a switch to XMPP, even though users often acknowledge the shortcomings of MSN when presented with the evidence, and even though they often understand the benefits of a system like XMPP as compared to MSN, they are unwilling to change simply because there is an effort involved, and because there is little in the way of instant gratification. Even though the effort required to change is small, they are still unwilling. They will throw up apathy or even profess satisfaction as a cloak, but ultimately, I believe that in the case of most users, this is what it comes down to.
the ultimatum
As with my free software advocacy, all I can really do in this situation is present people with the facts, and encourage them to actually make an informed decision on what to use, rather than simply accepting the norm.
I will continue using MSN (alongside XMPP) until the end of the Uni year, partly because there are some people I will need to stay in contact with, and partly to continue advocating the switch and (hopefully) see a few more converts.
To those who should remain: I wish you all the best on MSN. Please feel free to email me, and I hope to see you on the XMPP side some day.
t
