Yahoo Wants Users To Pay For IM Interop

from the sounds-positively-bad dept

Yahoo is apparently considering the idea of offering interoperability with other instant messaging platforms - but only if you're willing to pay. Of course, they (and every other IM provider) should have been offering IM interoperability years ago - but seemed to disregard the idea that the network effect would be a good thing. Now they want to charge people for a feature they should have added years ago? Doesn't seem worth it. They're adding an artificial barrier for no particular reason other than they hope to squeeze a few extra pennies out of users, rather than realize the overall benefits of letting more people communicate with each other. It's more "walled garden" thinking on an internet that is increasingly recognizing the value of open communication. It may net them a few pennies in the short run, but it just opens up a wider opportunity for others in the long term.
Hide this

Thank you for reading this Techdirt post. With so many things competing for everyone’s attention these days, we really appreciate you giving us your time. We work hard every day to put quality content out there for our community.

Techdirt is one of the few remaining truly independent media outlets. We do not have a giant corporation behind us, and we rely heavily on our community to support us, in an age when advertisers are increasingly uninterested in sponsoring small, independent sites — especially a site like ours that is unwilling to pull punches in its reporting and analysis.

While other websites have resorted to paywalls, registration requirements, and increasingly annoying/intrusive advertising, we have always kept Techdirt open and available to anyone. But in order to continue doing so, we need your support. We offer a variety of ways for our readers to support us, from direct donations to special subscriptions and cool merchandise — and every little bit helps. Thank you.

–The Techdirt Team


Reader Comments

Subscribe: RSS

View by: Time | Thread


  1. identicon
    dorpus, 10 Sep 2003 @ 12:35am

    Benefits of the walled garden

    The more open an IM scheme, the more potential for IM spam.

    link to this | view in thread ]

  2. identicon
    Anonymous Coward, 10 Sep 2003 @ 5:00am

    Re: Benefits of the walled garden

    Yeah. Um, that's it.

    You need to make up your own language, and only speak it instead of english, because then it makes it so that people can't swear at you.

    link to this | view in thread ]

  3. identicon
    Adam, 10 Sep 2003 @ 8:54am

    Why pay when a better product does it for free?

    I have been using Trillian for years (for free) and it lets me connect to AIM, Yahoo, MSN, ICQ and IRC all at the same time. 1 chat client, 1 buddy list, 0 cost.

    link to this | view in thread ]

  4. identicon
    Anonymous Coward, 10 Sep 2003 @ 9:28am

    Re: Why pay when a better product does it for free

    Heaven forbid you mention Trillian. Mike here is already aware of it. Next story.

    link to this | view in thread ]

  5. identicon
    thecaptain, 10 Sep 2003 @ 11:49am

    Re: Why pay when a better product does it for free

    can I mention Jabber safely? :)

    link to this | view in thread ]


Follow Techdirt
Essential Reading
Techdirt Deals
Report this ad  |  Hide Techdirt ads
Techdirt Insider Discord

The latest chatter on the Techdirt Insider Discord channel...

Loading...
Recent Stories

This site, like most other sites on the web, uses cookies. For more information, see our privacy policy. Got it
Close

Email This

This feature is only available to registered users. Register or sign in to use it.