What Ever Happened to MSN Messenger?

[Shadowboxer]

MSN messenger was garbage, it just came at a time when the next best alternative was an SMS for 10p for 60 characters. It killed itself by allowing users to sign in but appear offline. Soon everyone did that and nobody knew who was online so you’d just message someone in the hope they were online. The real messenger king was BBM, in that brief period in the mid 2000s when blackberries were the fruit of choice before Apple took over.

 

[terzaerian]

I wonder why it was replace by Skype, when I found those Window Essential software package actually useful and simple

I still wonder that too. F*cking Ballmer.

MSNIM was where it was at back in the day - the article touches on parts of the feature set but it also had built-in games and even more customization with MSNIM+.

The present is a nightmare in comparison. The normies all using Whatsapp and Facebook, and then everyone else fragmented between Discord, Telegram, Zoom, Signal, and Steam. People goggle at Zoom and video calling but MSNIM had that on lock back in 2007. None of them even come close to the suite of features MSNIM combined, or make you pay to do what MSNIM did for free.

 

[hk2000]

They kind of didn't. Alphabet (Google) were brilliant by deciding to give Android free to smartphone OEMs and just rely on the app store to generate revenue. Kind of like how major media suppliers/creators didn't initially see streaming as big revenue generator, Microsoft didn't see a OS locked app store as one either.

Let me ask you a question, if you were a smartphone manufacturer which would be more attractive? A free OS that the supplying company would support virtually forever (or until the phone/tablet couldn't run a newer version), or one based on the older seat license and EoL model? By the time M$ (Nokia and RIM as well) realized that Android was making an end run around them it was too late.

OEMs will always pick the cheapest option they possibly can, every time. The difference between a good company and a bad one is the good company will still consider user experience in the equation. In this case Android supplied a good enough experience for the masses, and helped keep prices at a level where mass smart phone adoption was inevitable.

The only way M$ stood a chance of having Windows Mobile come out on top is they should of done exactly what Alphabet did before they did it. The writing was on the wall, but Steveo was too busy playing office politics to see and react. So they continued with the idea that smart phones were high end products primarily used by professionals.

Now don't get me started on how this one mistake saddled us with "one OS for every platform" releases that serve M$ more than the end user...

M$? That told me all I needed to know. Then again, you just proved my point! Something as horrendous as the Android OS cannot be worth much, and per my original argument, the cheap, good enough for the masses OS was chosen- regardless by whom.

I used Windows Mobile for several years, and the only complaint I had was that it became impossible to upgrade the device, but as an OS, light years ahead of Android (and to a lesser degree, iOS). And by the way, it's should've not "should of".

 

[terzaerian]

M$? That told me all I needed to know. Then again, you just proved my point! Something as horrendous as the Android OS cannot be worth much, and per my original argument, the cheap, good enough for the masses OS was chosen- regardless by whom.

I used Windows Mobile for several years, and the only complaint I had was that it became impossible to upgrade the device, but as an OS, light years ahead of Android (and to a lesser degree, iOS). And by the way, it's should've not "should of".

The problem is endemic to smartphones as a paradigm. While the PC market was ailing in the late 2000s thanks to the race to the bottom, the smartphone was basically the end run directly to the bottom, the perfect dysfunctional marriage of horrendous, backwards cell carriers to lobotomized, underpowered and overburdened e-waste. It was rotten from the start and has only ever borne more rotten fruit.

 

[lordmogul]

I liked MSN. Well, the live messenger as it was called then.
Most of my stuff happened on ICQ, but MSN, especially with the unofficial "Plus" extension was pretty nice. Only had a couple of my buddies there, but the amount of customization was truly something else. Nowadays we have to take what the developer decides you should like.
Never got into Skype, and when they migrated their messenger into it, it pretty much died in my circles.

 

[ricardo1221]

Most of my stuff happened on ICQ, but MSN, especially with the unofficial "Plus" extension was pretty nice. Only had a couple of my buddies there, but the amount of customization was truly something else. Nowadays we have to take what the developer decides you should like.
Never got into Skype, and when they migrated their messenger into it, it pretty much died in my circles

 

[SpiritCrusher]

Definitely have to credit MSN Messenger for the bulk of my communication with the girl who would become my wife. It was very convenient to chat at 3am while doing C programming for college.