There Are Carrier Pigeon Apps Now Because Pigeon Technology Is Actually Superior
New messaging apps like Carrier Pidge and Roost are gaining popularity by simulating the slow, deliberate nature of carrier pigeons. While these apps use gimmicks to encourage slower communication, the author argues they miss the functional utility of actual historical pigeon technology.
Why it matters
The trend reflects a growing cultural desire to escape digital overload by adopting 'slow tech' alternatives.
There’s this viral app called Carrier Pidge, and with all due respect to its creator, it’s just a paint job on a kind of app that already existed. Same with another, similar new app, Roost.
What these apps do is they send messages on a delay, with actual geography taken into account so that messages between longer distances take longer. Slowly , a pen pal app, has been doing this since the 20-teens.
But these new apps are getting approving write-ups because, unlike Slowly, they have cute gimmicks. Specifically, they have little simulated animals in them—homing pigeons in the case of Carrier Pidge, and a whole menagerie including pigeons in the case of Roost. Carrier Pidge has a feature where your pigeon might die, triggering a micropurchase obligation where you have to buy a new pigeon.
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