Why None of the Messengers You Know Is the App of the Future

Here, at e-Chat, we know what features a messenger for future generations should obtain. Our ideas are based on quite a gloomy prediction of how the majority of well-known messengers function nowadays. Even the fact that each of us is using minimum 5-7 different means is showing that there is not a single one that could serve the needs of all users. We have analyzed the operational facilities of Skype, WhatsApp, Viber, Telegram, Hangouts, Line, and e-Chat.
You would easily find the supporters and haters of each of the mentioned above messenger, but the question on which of the messenger is the best and could serve the needs of future generations is still open.

Recently, we observe extremely high competition among the online communication means. Every smartphone has the Internet and it allows the users of the gadgets activate as many instant messaging apps as they want. Everyday startups come out with new messengers. Some specialize at sending the photo and video content; some are so weird that organize the communication by typing only one word (e.g. Yo app). The abundance of means pushes users to multiple their accounts and update the apps they store.

But there is even a bigger problem: the present situation threatens the basis of communication in the future. Everyone knows that the messengers are run by companies, so to say, this sphere is monopolized. We believe that the existing centralized architecture used as the model for all known instant messaging apps threatens the freedom and safety of modern online communication.

Every messenger that you use is isolated from another. You cannot send a text from Skype to Telegram and organize a video streaming from Facebook messenger to Viber. Moreover, each company-owner is having the fight of their lives to get you as their user. At the rise of the Internet, the situation with the personal communication was absolutely different, because the open standards penetrate all levels of interaction and provide the availability and interoperability of web-browsers, websites, and email clients. With the time the needs of Internet-users were growing and only small companies that are not using open standards managed to meet them. Skype was the first shot.
The popularity of smartphones brought to masses the real obsession with instant messengers. It was as clear as day that there is no need to spend money on texts or calls anymore and people started installing apps like crazy. Legacy mobile operators are trying to prevent the spread of VoIP and other services, but the idea of globalization and in the near distant future the picture having no SIM-cards in your phones is very plausible.

Our developers at e-Chat are positive that quite soon we will witness drastic changes in the sphere of communication. The online instant messaging software is turning into the leading way of interaction between people. And if the centralized infrastructure of the messengers we know doesn’t change, in the end, we receive hundreds of isolated apps on our gadgets that will only keep multiplying.

Let’s see what the weakest sides of modern messengers are. Let’s take Skype as a prototypical messenger, the first one of its class and Telegram because it claims to be the best in terms of safety, encryption, etc.

Skype

1. Skype is unsafe to use
   It opens up your IP-addresses, including the local one. Having these data, everyone could track you and get to know where you are located right now. Skype technical support doesn’t seem like sacrificing everything to fix bugs that the Skype community is bringing to the table. Even now, you can register a Skype account providing your email and there is no confirmation. Moreover, our guys at e-Chat know at least two ways how to block any user by only knowing their Skype logins. Its transport protocol is safe, but the app itself is not.

2. Skype management policy is unpredictable
   There is the whole story of Skype permissions and rejections. Some years ago, SkypeKit SDK was free for software developers and anyone could integrate Skype support into their products. Even at that time, the process to obtain it and make it work was very bureaucratic. Now, SkypeKit is not available, and all the products based on it, stopped working. If we take other instant messengers into consideration, they provide even less space for any additional development, basically, none.
   Telegram

3. Telegram has centralized management and architecture
   This messenger needs detailed observation as it claims to be the app of the future. But is it really so, or maybe there are some analogs that could outsmart it. Hint, hint (most likely, e-Chat). Telegram obtains all the information about its users, it decides what topics to discuss, what kind of data to exchange. It means that the management policy of this corporation could be manipulated by states or political organizations and it’s a matter of time when our freedoms could be fringed.

4. Telegram provides end-to-end encryption
   This is a truly convenient feature. Moreover, we, as users, have the opportunity to put the option of automated chat deletion. The procedure of keys verification is not clear yet and we cannot check it by ourselves. Though Telegram differs from its rivals, it doesn’t have all the features needed to become THE app for the future generations.
   Let’s bring a table with other messengers and discuss their features:

We discussed the existing messengers and are happy to announce that the weak sides of the aforementioned means of online communication could be strengthened and that’s what we actually did by creating e-Chat. It’s the first decentralized messenger. Only by saying that it’s based on the blockchain, IPFS, and P2P should ring the bells to you. Protection, the safety of data storage, built-in wallet, end-to-end encryption – are only some of the features that make e-Chat primus inter pares.