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I've been using Yahoo! Instant Messenger for several years, and am generally happy with it - most of my friends are on Y!IM. But for months now their servers seem to get in some kind of "unsynchronized" state where they can't report properly who's online and who's not.
When I look at my main Y! IM window (the Win2000 client), typing control-R for refresh will often change people's status as if I had old data, but typing it again changes it again. Right now I am rotating between three different views of buddy status - this is maddening because I can't tell who's idle and who's even online.
I cannot imagine the complexities of maintaining millions of clients connected to a set of servers, but AOL IM - which has a much larger client base - finds a way to run what seems like a rock-solid service to me.
I receive tremendous value from Yahoo! IM, and I wish there were a way for me to pay for it. Right now I'm just some cheapskate whining about a free service, but paying for it would presumably (a) provide better support and (b) fund development.
AOL can do it. Why can't Yahoo!?
Posted by Steve at January 16, 2003 03:28 PM | TrackBackPresumably you'd wait to pay for it until AFTER it worked properly? :-)
Posted by: Derek on January 16, 2003 05:20 PMHell no - I'll pay now. Yahoo! - and all web enterprises - need to see a revenue stream to make it worth their while, and I'm prepared to put my money where my gripes are.
If Y! were unusable as it is, that might be a different story, but it works well enough that I can "get by".
I just can't believe how such a quality operation as Yahoo! has such a bad handle on this one area.
Posted by: Steve on January 16, 2003 05:22 PMOT, but, it's nice to see you posting in your blog again.
Posted by: Wendy on January 16, 2003 10:52 PM