Here in Italy Telegram is slowly gaining traction. Even the municipality in my city uses it (for traffic notices and other warnings), very useful.
Bonus points: bots, Gif search and stickers!
Manual car with start&stop owner here; I always use it when driving in the city, so do all of my friends. It's just slightly uncomfortable the first times, when you have to train your muscle memory.
Yes, I know... Developers are constantly asking for an API of some sort, but seems that Xiaomi ignores that. Too bad, since the MiBand is a nice little device. Are you trying to use it on Android? There is also an iOs library (but seems very limited) and a Python one (has a lot of functions - http://oscaracena.bitbucket.org/mibanda/api/)
This is a nice post about their protocol, although it seems that they are trying to prevent reverse engineering by obfuscating it in newer releases. There are also links to some useful libraries. Remember that MiBand can be connected to just one device at a time.
I don't know how it is in the US, but in Europe thefts are VERY common, and because of this trust/relationship plays a very important role. That said, the industry is very, very old school, spreadsheets at best. Although with the new generation taking over, the things will change (I hope).
It happens to me a lot! And sometimes I can't find words in neither of my languages, and then turn to English (which is strange, since I learned English at a later point).
I know it's hard. I know that you think that everything sucks, because I used to think that, too. But there is passionate people around you, there are good companies, there is an interesting work. You have just to go and find them. Network and things will go better, I promise.