Why we can send emails from gmail to yahoo or outlook but cannot do the same with instant messaging apps like WhatsApp to Messenger or iMessage?
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All emails run on the same protocols. SMTP to send, and either IMAP or POP3 to receive. This makes them much more flexible. Specifically having SMTP as the standard for sending messages – as your web client either uses IMAP or POP3 to download the message from the web server, not both.
That COULD be possible with other message apps, if they allowed it and built their programs to do so. However, all of the messengers were developed in house behind closed doors with proprietary code. Sharing that code would be the same thing as sharing their income.
It helps that the email protocols were largely built off of the original protocols (and I think smtp may still be in its original form, save for optimization) so the newer versions of The post office protocol (POP2, then POP3) were still built off of the same tech and scaffolding that could already relay with email servers, plus IMAP was made already knowing what protocols it needs to line up with
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