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Except people still release protocols. Just look at https://matrix.org/ https://matrix.org/ IRC is an early protocol and wasn't designed for extensibility purp

Except people still release protocols. Just look at https://matrix.org/ https://matrix.org/ IRC is an early protocol and wasn't designed for extensibility purposes. A new chat protocol just needs to replace it.

SamuelAdams 7y ago
IRC was created in 1988. There have been several chat protocols created since then [1]. A few notable protocols that tick a lot of "modern" boxes: - Jami - Matrix - Signal Protocol - XMPP The better question: why aren't new and existing technology companies embracing these protocols and making them ubiquitous? Personally I think it's because companies have a vested interest in creating walled gardens. The more users that are forced onto a platform, the more money they make. It's against their business interest to create a product that works with their competitors. [1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comparison_of_instant_messaging_protocols https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comparison_of_instant_messagin...
- jasode 7y ago
  >It's against their business interest to create a product that works with their competitors. There's more to it than a simplistic "business interest" to explain it. For example, the Signal protocol is free to use. No payments for patent royalties or software licenses required. Moxie Marlinspike's company Signal LLC (Open WhisperSystems) is a non-profit entity. But notice that an organization that isn't pressured into making a profit and that's using an underlying free protocol -- does not want to federate with LibreSignal[0]. This an example of where the "openness of a protocol" runs into a hard reality of "closed wall of implementation". The protocols themselves can cost $0 but implementations (e.g. cpu+disk+bandwidth+staff) cost more than $0 which leads to complaints of it being "not really open". If people do not examine the economic forces surrounding any protocol, they will always be perplexed why the internet is not as free & open as they think it should be. Even non-profit entities are not immune from economic forces. [0] https://github.com/LibreSignal/LibreSignal/issues/37#issuecomment-217211165 https://github.com/LibreSignal/LibreSignal/issues/37#issueco...
- achingtooth 7y ago
  It might be because Slack has support, a great UI, lots of users, and 'just works'. A company I worked with tried to setup Riot and Matrix and they were having all sorts of problems. Even when they tried to use the Riot.im website there were bugs and features from Slack they needed that were missing. What Matrix and Riot.im is doing is still good though, I hope it takes off.
  - ptman 7y ago
    Matrix is improving all the time. 1.0 was just released
- bpicolo 7y ago
  > why aren't new and existing technology companies embracing these protocols and making them ubiquitous? Because they don't want to be at the behest of protocol maintainers to improve their product? Their goals and the goals of maintainers would never align. Open source is great, but open source moves at slow pace compared to what a revenue-driven company can. There's a reason that most of the big open source projects have a company backing them.
  - Sahhaese 7y ago
    Open source moves at a slow pace now, but look at HTML between 1994 and 1998, that was a fast-moving and exciting time.
    - cheez 7y ago
      It looks like 1-to-N protocols can grow organically without significant investment (HTTP, hypertext), but N-to-M (chat, social media) cannot.
    - jerf 7y ago
      Which was driven by Netscape, a revenue-driven company. Complaints about corporations capturing HTML are not new; Google is merely the latest in the line. (That's not to diminish the fact that it's still bad every time. It's just this isn't the first time.)
mciancia 7y ago
Sad thing is that matrix is not working really well
- ptman 7y ago
  how come?

SamuelAdams 7y ago

IRC was created in 1988. There have been several chat protocols created since then [1]. A few notable protocols that tick a lot of "modern" boxes: - Jami - Matrix - Signal Protocol - XMPP The better question: why aren't new and existing technology companies embracing these protocols and making them ubiquitous? Personally I think it's because companies have a vested interest in creating walled gardens. The more users that are forced onto a platform, the more money they make. It's against their business interest to create a product that works with their competitors. [1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comparison_of_instant_messaging_protocols https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comparison_of_instant_messagin...

jasode 7y ago
>It's against their business interest to create a product that works with their competitors. There's more to it than a simplistic "business interest" to explain it. For example, the Signal protocol is free to use. No payments for patent royalties or software licenses required. Moxie Marlinspike's company Signal LLC (Open WhisperSystems) is a non-profit entity. But notice that an organization that isn't pressured into making a profit and that's using an underlying free protocol -- does not want to federate with LibreSignal[0]. This an example of where the "openness of a protocol" runs into a hard reality of "closed wall of implementation". The protocols themselves can cost $0 but implementations (e.g. cpu+disk+bandwidth+staff) cost more than $0 which leads to complaints of it being "not really open". If people do not examine the economic forces surrounding any protocol, they will always be perplexed why the internet is not as free & open as they think it should be. Even non-profit entities are not immune from economic forces. [0] https://github.com/LibreSignal/LibreSignal/issues/37#issuecomment-217211165 https://github.com/LibreSignal/LibreSignal/issues/37#issueco...
achingtooth 7y ago
It might be because Slack has support, a great UI, lots of users, and 'just works'. A company I worked with tried to setup Riot and Matrix and they were having all sorts of problems. Even when they tried to use the Riot.im website there were bugs and features from Slack they needed that were missing. What Matrix and Riot.im is doing is still good though, I hope it takes off.
- ptman 7y ago
  Matrix is improving all the time. 1.0 was just released
bpicolo 7y ago
> why aren't new and existing technology companies embracing these protocols and making them ubiquitous? Because they don't want to be at the behest of protocol maintainers to improve their product? Their goals and the goals of maintainers would never align. Open source is great, but open source moves at slow pace compared to what a revenue-driven company can. There's a reason that most of the big open source projects have a company backing them.
- Sahhaese 7y ago
  Open source moves at a slow pace now, but look at HTML between 1994 and 1998, that was a fast-moving and exciting time.
  - cheez 7y ago
    It looks like 1-to-N protocols can grow organically without significant investment (HTTP, hypertext), but N-to-M (chat, social media) cannot.
  - jerf 7y ago
    Which was driven by Netscape, a revenue-driven company. Complaints about corporations capturing HTML are not new; Google is merely the latest in the line. (That's not to diminish the fact that it's still bad every time. It's just this isn't the first time.)

mciancia 7y ago

Sad thing is that matrix is not working really well

ptman 7y ago
how come?