Why Do People Still Text
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@scottalanmiller said:
@Dashrender said:
SMSing only exists because it's a follow up to paging. The phone companies found a great solution to a text push need (texts) and everyone at the time all agreed to do it the same. The was easily extended to SMS messaging we have today.
It wasn't extended, it's just paging as it always was.
What's wrong with paging?
Just because email was invented doesn't mean it should replace it. That's like saying IRC should be replace with forums. Two different forms of communication and different purposes.
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@thecreativeone91 said:
What's wrong with paging?
Just because email was invented doesn't mean it should replace it. That's like saying IRC should be replace with forums. Two different forms of communication and different purposes.
I keep saying that we should still have paging... for paging functions.
Two different things for two different purposes is my point exactly. Use paging for paging purposes (emergencies or alerts) and IM/Email or whatever for normal communications. You've just repeated what I thought was my whole point. Don't try to mash email and/or IM functions into paging, keep paging pure for paging purposes.
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@scottalanmiller said:
@Dashrender said:
Have you found that to be really worthwhile? For example, when I just try to surf the web at a Starbucks using local wifi, I want to off myself because it's so horribly slow! even when there are only 2 people in the shop other than workers...
I always find myself disabling wifi and using Cellular data because it's 100x faster.WiFi calling is about the best thing ever. Reason why is because effectively every permanent location you deal with (like work and home) now have rock solid calling. For many of us, no carrier offered that everywhere. WiFi calling gives you the power to put calling where you need it and frees you from the limitations of any individual carrier.
So then you just have a portable VoIP phone. Especially since around here that's the only way you'd get coverage with them.
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@scottalanmiller said:
@Dashrender said:
Absolutely - but replacing it with email does not seem like the correct move. Replacing it with an IM client is - but since you'll never get every phone manufacturer and every phone carrier to agree on a single IM client, that will never happen.
I keep saying that I'm not saying to replace it with email.
Why is a single IM client needed?
because you need 100% brain dead simple guaranteed compatibility to whom you're sending a message to.
I know you keep saying you're not saying to replace with email, but you do have to pick a single, one, uno consolidated platform that everyone will content to for ubiquitous access.
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@Dashrender said:
@scottalanmiller said:
@Dashrender said:
This isn't true - you don't know it's gotten there unless you get a recipient receipt, or a read receipt. In the mean time all you know is that your mail client delivered the message to your outgoing email server.
You know that it has gotten off of your device. At least any device that I know verifies this. Because it knows that the transfer was successful. It's only the first stage but it is a level of confirmation that SMS does not have.
Clearly this hasn't been a problem, otherwise people would be complaining to their carriers and they would find a better solution.
Why, anyone who understands the limitations knows that the problem was solved before it arrived. We have email for people who care. That's like complaining that your boat doesn't drive well on the highway. No matter how much you complain, no one is going to turn their boats into cars, you can already buy a car for that. If people keep trying to drive boats on roads.... that's not the boat maker's problem.
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@Dashrender said:
I know you keep saying you're not saying to replace with email, but you do have to pick a single, one, uno consolidated platform that everyone will content to for ubiquitous access.
Well, here is the thing... that's one of my pro-email arguments. Email is universal. SMS is pretty universal, but not to the same level. Right now, no one is picking just one. So I don't think that "having to" holds up. Clearly we don't have to. We had one that was universal and people chose to splinter. Maybe the underlying problem is the idea that we should have only one. Even though having many is horrible.
But ubiquity doesn't exist today. Lots of people don't have email. Lots of people don't have SMS. Lots of people have a little access to one or the other or both.
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@scottalanmiller said:
@Dashrender said:
Have you found that to be really worthwhile? For example, when I just try to surf the web at a Starbucks using local wifi, I want to off myself because it's so horribly slow! even when there are only 2 people in the shop other than workers...
I always find myself disabling wifi and using Cellular data because it's 100x faster.WiFi calling is about the best thing ever. Reason why is because effectively every permanent location you deal with (like work and home) now have rock solid calling. For many of us, no carrier offered that everywhere. WiFi calling gives you the power to put calling where you need it and frees you from the limitations of any individual carrier.
OK that makes sense, but then I have to ask.. do you really need a cell phone for that? Why not a Wifi phone at those locations with an Asterisk PBX sending your calls to you? I bet that can be done for less than the cost of the monthly wireless carrier - even if you have to pay hosting fees in a DC.
I want a cell phone less for those locations and more for when I'm out and about.
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@scottalanmiller said:
@Dashrender said:
I know you keep saying you're not saying to replace with email, but you do have to pick a single, one, uno consolidated platform that everyone will content to for ubiquitous access.
Well, here is the thing... that's one of my pro-email arguments. Email is universal. SMS is pretty universal, but not to the same level. Right now, no one is picking just one. So I don't think that "having to" holds up. Clearly we don't have to. We had one that was universal and people chose to splinter. Maybe the underlying problem is the idea that we should have only one. Even though having many is horrible.
But ubiquity doesn't exist today. Lots of people don't have email. Lots of people don't have SMS. Lots of people have a little access to one or the other or both.
He wasn't talking about them being ubiquitous across communication types. He's taking about the fact with IM you have to find out which IM network they are on, then what their ID is etc. with SMS all you need is their phone number.
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@scottalanmiller said:
@thecreativeone91 said:
What's wrong with paging?
Just because email was invented doesn't mean it should replace it. That's like saying IRC should be replace with forums. Two different forms of communication and different purposes.
I keep saying that we should still have paging... for paging functions.
Two different things for two different purposes is my point exactly. Use paging for paging purposes (emergencies or alerts) and IM/Email or whatever for normal communications. You've just repeated what I thought was my whole point. Don't try to mash email and/or IM functions into paging, keep paging pure for paging purposes.
Other than automated alerts from things like servers, why do you need paging at all, if it's like you said for emergencies? why isn't calling good enough?
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@Dashrender said:
OK that makes sense, but then I have to ask.. do you really need a cell phone for that? Why not a Wifi phone at those locations with an Asterisk PBX sending your calls to you? I bet that can be done for less than the cost of the monthly wireless carrier - even if you have to pay hosting fees in a DC.
It's because it gives me access to one phone, one phone number regardless of what kind of network service I am on. I don't want to have to have multiple devices for multiple places.
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@scottalanmiller said:
@Dashrender said:
@scottalanmiller said:
@Dashrender said:
This isn't true - you don't know it's gotten there unless you get a recipient receipt, or a read receipt. In the mean time all you know is that your mail client delivered the message to your outgoing email server.
You know that it has gotten off of your device. At least any device that I know verifies this. Because it knows that the transfer was successful. It's only the first stage but it is a level of confirmation that SMS does not have.
Clearly this hasn't been a problem, otherwise people would be complaining to their carriers and they would find a better solution.
Why, anyone who understands the limitations knows that the problem was solved before it arrived. We have email for people who care. That's like complaining that your boat doesn't drive well on the highway. No matter how much you complain, no one is going to turn their boats into cars, you can already buy a car for that. If people keep trying to drive boats on roads.... that's not the boat maker's problem.
OK and because you don't want to take SMS away, then you can't solve this problem - because you can't prevent people from using text messages.
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@Dashrender said:
Other than automated alerts from things like servers, why do you need paging at all, if it's like you said for emergencies? why isn't calling good enough?
Well I'm in IT so automated alerts are my bread and butter. Calling is bad because I need information in writing. Sure, sometimes voice is okay. But if I am driving or can't hear because it is loud, or I just can't hear well, or the person on the other end can't speak clearly.... I need everything in writing to know what to do. In IT this is super critical. People speaking are way too likely to not be clearly understood when you are relaying critical information like a server name, or a street address or whatever.
But the big deal isn't that since you should always have email for the details. Its just the "I can't always answer the phone, but I can see that a page came in."
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@Dashrender said:
I want a cell phone less for those locations and more for when I'm out and about.
Exactly isn't that what cell phones are for?
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@Dashrender said:
OK and because you don't want to take SMS away, then you can't solve this problem - because you can't prevent people from using text messages.
Right, that's the issue, because people use SMS instead of email or IM, we now need another paging system for paging because the paging system has been stolen from us
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@scottalanmiller said:
@Dashrender said:
I know you keep saying you're not saying to replace with email, but you do have to pick a single, one, uno consolidated platform that everyone will content to for ubiquitous access.
Well, here is the thing... that's one of my pro-email arguments. Email is universal. SMS is pretty universal, but not to the same level. Right now, no one is picking just one. So I don't think that "having to" holds up. Clearly we don't have to. We had one that was universal and people chose to splinter. Maybe the underlying problem is the idea that we should have only one. Even though having many is horrible.
But ubiquity doesn't exist today. Lots of people don't have email. Lots of people don't have SMS. Lots of people have a little access to one or the other or both.
Exactly so we have what we have today. So if in the end we will end up with what we have today, what's the problem? If you're simply telling me that you wish people would stop using SMS and migrate non urgent things to IM, any IM instead of SMS - I have to ask.. why? what difference does it make?
The only reason I can think of is so you can turn notifications back on for SMS because you know people will only use SMS for emergent things... I'm here to tell you, that will never happen.
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@Dashrender said:
@scottalanmiller said:
@Dashrender said:
@scottalanmiller said:
@Dashrender said:
This isn't true - you don't know it's gotten there unless you get a recipient receipt, or a read receipt. In the mean time all you know is that your mail client delivered the message to your outgoing email server.
You know that it has gotten off of your device. At least any device that I know verifies this. Because it knows that the transfer was successful. It's only the first stage but it is a level of confirmation that SMS does not have.
Clearly this hasn't been a problem, otherwise people would be complaining to their carriers and they would find a better solution.
Why, anyone who understands the limitations knows that the problem was solved before it arrived. We have email for people who care. That's like complaining that your boat doesn't drive well on the highway. No matter how much you complain, no one is going to turn their boats into cars, you can already buy a car for that. If people keep trying to drive boats on roads.... that's not the boat maker's problem.
OK and because you don't want to take SMS away, then you can't solve this problem - because you can't prevent people from using text messages.
And it's not really that big of a problem just is in Scott's own world!
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@Dashrender said:
Exactly so we have what we have today. So if in the end we will end up with what we have today, what's the problem? If you're simply telling me that you wish people would stop using SMS and migrate non urgent things to IM, any IM instead of SMS - I have to ask.. why? what difference does it make?
Yes. So that alerts can be alerts and we don't have to react to every trivial message as if the building is on fire. IT always talks about how we never can get away from work, we can never shut down, we can never not be on high alert.... that's why. Because I don't want to spend my life staying at a device to see if the person sending me an alert is actually alerting me or if they are asking what I want to do for dinner tomorrow.
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@Dashrender said:
The only reason I can think of is so you can turn notifications back on for SMS because you know people will only use SMS for emergent things... I'm here to tell you, that will never happen.
So how do YOU handle being alerted? how do you know when it matters and when it doesn't?
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@thecreativeone91 said:
@scottalanmiller said:
@Dashrender said:
I know you keep saying you're not saying to replace with email, but you do have to pick a single, one, uno consolidated platform that everyone will content to for ubiquitous access.
Well, here is the thing... that's one of my pro-email arguments. Email is universal. SMS is pretty universal, but not to the same level. Right now, no one is picking just one. So I don't think that "having to" holds up. Clearly we don't have to. We had one that was universal and people chose to splinter. Maybe the underlying problem is the idea that we should have only one. Even though having many is horrible.
But ubiquity doesn't exist today. Lots of people don't have email. Lots of people don't have SMS. Lots of people have a little access to one or the other or both.
He wasn't talking about them being ubiquitous across communication types. He's taking about the fact with IM you have to find out which IM network they are on, then what their ID is etc. with SMS all you need is their phone number.
Yep, It doesn't matter what kind of phone you have, what carrier you're on, where you live.. anywhere in the world.. if I know your phone number I can SMS you.. it may not be free if I SMS an international number... but I can still do it simply by knowing your number... and I know it works for EVERYONE who has a cellphone.
That's just not the case with anything else except email... so frankly, while you're not abdicating for email to be the replacement - I really think you should be! It's the second most ubiquitous platform out here, possibly the first.
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@thecreativeone91 said:
And it's not really that big of a problem just is in Scott's own world!
Am I truly the only person out there in IT that is ever in need of being alerted AND has family that talks on text? Again, this seems like I'm being pointing out as the edge case for being completely normal. I can't always be the edge case, that's just not possible. Especially when it is in random directions of high tech, low tech, rural, city, etc.
