Ecosystem - tools and services with network effects, like Google Cloud Messaging.<p>Lots of phone carriers whitelist that server of theirs to allow it to wake up phone unprompted from idle while typically only allowing phone-initiated connection  to stay active, and they also tend to block most incoming connections once the phone has been inactive for a while.<p>While it isn&#x27;t technically hard to make something distributed, to also make it <i>work well</i> can be troublesome...<p>Yet another reason I want home servers to become common, as your phone could automatically request that your carrier whitelist your chosen trusted nodes such as your home server.